


Episode VII: The Savage Dawn

by InFamousHero



Series: The Balance Restored Trilogy [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Canon Rewrite, Cathars (Star Wars), Fix-It, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Gen, M/M, Mystery, Queer Characters, Worldbuilding, answer me that, background Leia/Amylin, gays in space, grey force, how can there be reylo if they're both gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:01:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 60,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26083867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFamousHero/pseuds/InFamousHero
Summary: A trilogy rewrite where Finn becomes a Jedi, Rey's family mystery isn't a baffling zigzag, stormpilot becomes canon, Kylo is the tragic villain he should have been, and Poe never dealt any drugs because what the hell was that.Plus extra queer characters and worldbuilding.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Series: The Balance Restored Trilogy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1908346
Comments: 119
Kudos: 33





	1. Domino Effect

**Author's Note:**

> So 2020 is a surreal nightmare but at least there’s community, art, and fanworks to keep us marginally sane.
> 
> In light of that, here’s my contribution, and I hope you’re keeping safe, clean, and as happy as you can manage. I love you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Empire fell the galaxy breathed a sigh of relief and turned its attention to rebuilding. Imperial remnants quickly disappeared from known space and in the aftermath came the New Republic, a return to democracy and fairness in a galaxy sorely lacking either.
> 
> Fourty-five years have passed since the fall of the Empire. Master Luke Skywalker and his nascent Jedi are dead, betrayed by one of their own, and a sinister new faction called the First Order is spreading their influence across the galaxy, recently emerged from the treacherous Unknown Regions.
> 
> Legendary General Leia Organa, no stranger to fighting such an enemy, leads the Independent Freedom Coalition in a valiant effort to stop the First Order before their cruel schemes can encompass the entire galaxy. But without the New Republic’s backing, they are losing ground. In a last ditch effort to sway the New Republic into action before it’s too late, General Organa seeks out a meeting with Chancellor Lanever Villecham…

The skyline of Hosnian’s governmental sector gleamed like an array of polished spears in the late afternoon sun, as grand an ecumenopolis as Coruscant, and with all the problems that came with it. Pretty and affluent on the surface but dig just a few layers down…

“Madam Organa?”

Leia turned away from the window to the young human secretary addressing her. “The Chancellor will see you now.”

“Thank you,” she said, striding calmly through the double-doors into a spacious office. It was her third time in this particular chamber, and the pragmatic side of her knew it would likely be her last. Nonetheless, she had to try—countless lives were depending on it. To that end, she wore a stylish, silver coat rather than her Coalition uniform, with her lightsaber hidden from sight in an attempt to appear less like a military leader and more of a diplomat.

Chancellor Villecham made quick work of dismissing any such pretence.

“Welcome back to democracy, _General_ ,” he said, rising from his desk. He was getting on in years, a sign of reverent wisdom amongst Tarsunt that Leia sincerely doubted in his case, and wore a stately, dark blue robe over his stocky form. He bowed politely and motioned for her to take a seat, which she did after bowing in turn. “Have you reconsidered?” he asked with barely veiled condescension.

She bit back a sharp-tongued response at the familiar patronising attitude the Chancellor had for her. “No, not while the Outer Rim burns,” she said firmly, “people are dying, Lanever. Children are being stolen. This isn’t something you can just keep ignoring and hoping it takes care of itself. I reiterate, once more, that you need to take this threat seriously.”

Lanever leaned back in his seat with a dismissive shake of his head. “If the First Order tamed the Unknown Regions in all its savagery, I don’t see any real problem with them bringing a sense of civilisation and decency to the Outer Rim. Those territories are rife with lawless vagabonds, criminal gangs, and all manner of scoundrels,” he paused and smiled coldly, tilting his head. “How is your husband these days? Has he crawled out of his hole yet or is he still hiding in shame with the rest of the gutter trash?”

For a split second the urge to slam Lanever into the wall and ruin his beautifully framed banner of the New Republic crossed Leia’s mind. But she sat perfectly still, clenching her jaw until the urge passed. The last she heard from Han was eight years ago, and it was brief and painful, bringing all those terrible memories rushing back to the surface. Lanever _wanted_ her hurt and angry, to lash out and supposedly show her ‘true face’ so he didn’t have to humour her diplomatic overtures and could further discredit her as the daughter of a tyrant.

She forced a polite smile on her face and persisted. “Family can be an agonising experience, Chancellor. All I want is for other families to remain safe and whole, and they won’t if you don’t open your eyes and realise the First Order is working its way towards us.”

Lanever sighed and got up from his desk to pour himself a drink. “ _Us?_ ” he snorted, shaking his head. “ _The New Republic_ has its own problems to deal with without shouldering the burdens of outsiders.” He turned to her with the drink in hand, scowling. “Especially not the burdens of a rogue collection of independents that poach _our_ agents, _our_ soldiers, and _our_ civilians for their leader’s personal vendetta when _we_ are stretched thin as it is.”

Another barb to ignore in favour of pressing her point, another memory too painful to dwell on. “The pirates have become a very big problem, haven’t they?” she tilts her head, watching his expression soften. “It’s strange that their attacks started at the same time the First Order began their campaign of terror.”

“Please, their resources are tied up in the Outer Rim. There’s no evidence of any interaction between the First Order and those scum. Or did you bring evidence to back up such a wild assertion?”

“I have one of my best people working on that as we speak. It isn’t a coincidence, Lanever, what do you think is going to happen here? Do you honestly think the First Order will ‘civilise’ the Outer Rim and stop there?”

He paced behind his desk, one hand tucked behind his back, the other cradling his glass. “I _believe_ that agitating them will only spark a war that benefits neither of us. Besides, they’ve already made peaceful contact with us.”

Leia grimaced at that. “I heard. A trade deal.” The purpose of it was crystal clear to her, offer with one hand to distract from what the other was doing. Provided the Senate was merely distracted and not wilfully ignoring the First Order’s actions, but she knew with growing exhaustion that it was more likely the latter. It didn’t directly affect the New Republic, so they did nothing.

Cowardice.

Lanever spread his arms in exasperation. “And yet you still think we should attack them! We are _this_ close to rationing, we cannot afford a war!”

Leia stood, staring him down with steel in her voice. “The New Republic was _supposed_ to stand for fairness, justice, and freedom. The First Order doesn’t stand for any such thing, they’re the very same evil we defeated forty years ago, and now you want to place nice with them despite all warnings to the contrary.”

Lanever had the nerve to shrug. “The deal greatly favoured us at a time of _significant_ need. They haven’t even come close to our territories. If we attack them now, we show that we have no consideration for prior commitments, promises made, or gestures of good faith.” He finished his drink and set the glass down with a thump, motioning to the door. “I tire of your _warmongering_ , General _._ The next time I see you I expect to hear of the Coalition’s disbandment.”

A cold, hard feeling settled in Leia’s stomach, and she rose to her feet. “I fear the next time will be too late, Lanever,” she said gravely, “I hope I’m wrong.”

He narrowed his eyes in a sneer. “Get out.”

Leia left the room with heavier steps than when she entered and fire in her veins, clenching her hands when the door closed behind her. She made her way down through the towering Senate building, passing by hundreds of representatives from hundreds of worlds until she came to the entrance. In this grand hall, the flag of every member of the New Republic hung from the ceiling in a dazzling wave of colours, and she stared at them for a long moment, wondering which world the First Order would strike.

A terrible sense of dread passed over her, and she made her way to the spaceport, quietly hoping Poe’s mission went better than her meeting did.

* * *

The air within the Finalizer’s secondary hangar buzzed with nervous energy, booted feet rushing to prep, orders barked over heads and shoulders to get the drop ships ready, and the repeated clicks and clacks of weapons and armour checked, secured, and double-checked by neighbouring troopers.

Finn squashed his nerves, breathing deeply as he methodically adjusted the set of his rifle’s power cell and locked it back into place. He put it down on the equipment crate and gave his armour one last check, the pristine white plates sitting comfortably. The motions were so engrained he could do it asleep, and his thoughts raced ahead to the mission—their _first_ mission on the other side of the barrier.

From their mission briefing, Jakku was a harsh, frigid planet home to miners and scavengers, and the only reason it held any significance was its history as the last place their forbears clashed with the enemy. The last stand before they were banished into the uncountable dangers of the Unknown Regions.

Unknown to the Republic, perhaps, to the First Order it was the Frontier.

And now they were returning to finish what the Empire started. If The First Order could carve a dominion of law and discipline from a place as wild and dangerous as the Frontier, the greater galaxy would be child’s play.

This time would be different.

He glanced at his squadmates, each doing their last checks, each of them a product of the Frontier. He and Nines were both trained as younglings, both of them orphaned by conflict, and both of them comprising the human half of the squad. Nines’ status as the shortest of them became comical standing next to Zeroes, a huge, green-skinned Tarro male who found his home in the First Order like many of his scattered species. He shared his refugee status with Slip, the last member of their squad, a Nagai male whose family fled brutal invasion by a neighbouring species.

The Frontier was a treacherous place to live, but they made it their own. Perhaps the Republic would see they were wrong to abandon those who lived in it as worthless savages.

“You in there, Dorne?”

Finn blinked, pulled from his thoughts by Zeroes, who smirked at him from the other side of the equipment crate. “Thought you’d have some words of encouragement, this is a big deal!”

“Yeah, not every day we get to corner a traitor,” said Nines, grinning ear to ear like an eager nexu. “I hope I get to that worthless heretic first.”

Zeroes clapped his shoulder, almost knocking him down. “You’ll have to race me for that one, runt.”

“Focus on the mission,” Finn said sternly, his tone causing the pair to stand to attention immediately. “I don’t want anyone dying because they got ahead of themselves, am I clear?”

“Yes, sir!” they responded together.

Finn nodded and pointed at the nearest dropship. “If you’re all done, get to your stations.”

Nines and Zeroes saluted, put their helmets on and jogged over to the ship with the other squads.

It was difficult to avoid spotting Captain Phasma at the boarding ramp, her chromium armour, black and red-trim cape, and towering stature combining to make her an intimidating and almost otherworldly sight on the battlefield. He wondered what she thought about this or if it was as straightforward as any other mission for her.

“I still don’t get it.”

Finn turned to look at Slip, a pensive look on the slender alien’s face, and automatically started mentally reciting the many answers Phasma gave him over the years for moments like these. “You don’t have to understand his reasons to know he needs to be stopped.”

Slip’s frown deepened. He toyed with the dark red memorial bead hanging from the barrel of his rifle. “I know, I know.”

“But?”

“I just can’t imagine turning my back on Her and all She’s done for us. The Void protects and guides and—and we’d be lost without Her. But he’d jeopardise that and spurn Her! Spurn us! Why?”

Finn shook his head slowly. “Some people just don’t understand what they’ve been given. Some are ungrateful. Some are selfish and weak. Whatever their reasoning, all that matters is that they’re trying to hurt us.” He put a hand on Slip’s shoulder, squeezing. “Let the Mother question him in death. O _ur_ job is to enact Her will.”

Slip took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Conflict continued to furrow his brow, but he nodded. “Right. Yes.” He nodded again with more conviction and straightened. “I won’t let him affect me.”

Smiling stiffly, Finn handed Slip his helmet. “Then let’s go.”

Slip broke into an energised grin before it disappeared under the helmet. “Yes, sir!”

* * *

Jakku wasn’t the worst planet he’d ever been to, but Poe detested the cold regardless. If it was snowing he didn’t want to be there, stars, if he could see his breath, he didn’t want to be there. But Jakku, the little boreal snowball that it was, was where his contact wanted to meet so Jakku it was.

At least the shack was warm, the glow of a fire pit letting him bring his hands back to life as a blasted _blizzard_ howled outside. He hoped BB-8 wasn’t getting buried out there; at least the little droid had retractable cleats.

“Look, I love getting frostbite as much as the next guy, but I’d like to get out of here with all my toes attached,” he said, eyeing his contact over the fire, a Chiss man who dressed the part of a local scavenger, a perfect disguise as long as he kept his face covered. Chiss were a rare sight for most of the galaxy. “You got a name?”

“Edren,” said the Chiss, reaching for a palm-sized grey box on the bench next to him. “This is what you came here for.” He handed it over, watching as Poe flipped the latch and opened it to reveal a compact data-chip. “You will need to decode it.”

Poe frowned at that, closing the box and stuffing it in his jacket. “How long will that take?”

Edren looked away, as if calculating. “Based on your alleged capabilities, a week, maybe less,” he said, frowning when he returned his gaze to Poe. “You understand this is for your own safety. If they capture you when you’ve already seen it…”

Poe held up a hand. “Yeah, I know.” Everyone in the Coalition knew the horror stories about Sith Inquisitors tearing into a prisoners mind and leaving them a broken husk. “But this better be something good.”

A harrowing look flashed through Edren’s eyes at that, and he sighed quietly. “It is…it will help. I wouldn’t risk my life for an empty gesture. I hope you can save your Republic before it’s too late.”

The sincerity caught him off-guard, and Poe grimaced, trying not to let his fear rush to the surface. “There’s something else isn’t there?”

Edren shook his head. “I’ve done what I can to help you. Anything more would put you in danger.”

Poe opened his mouth only for the shack door to burst open, letting in a rush of frozen air and BB-8’s frantic beeping. He lifted a hand against the flecks of snow hitting his face. “Say that again, buddy?”

“ _< <First Order drop ships coming through the storm!>>_”

His stomach dropped, and he stood at the same time as Edren. The Chiss was a picture of grim resignation. “Run. _Now._ ”

* * *

The descent was fast and turbulent, the cabin shaking with every violent buffet of wind as if the storm was trying to rattle loose any trooper who failed to clip in properly. No one did, each trooper stood resolute in their line, anchored to the floor and ceiling, some praying for protection in the battle ahead, others muttering zealous declarations of vengeance and loyalty.

Finn did neither. Instead, he turned inward and pictured the surface of a lake, so motionless it resembled that of a mirror. He focused on his breathing, slow and deep, running scenarios through his head and methodically dealing with each of them in turn. Calm served him much better than anger or zealotry, as it did his mentor, and as he opened his eyes, he looked over at her.

Phasma stood at the front, positioned to lead the charge as the first one out of the ship, her preferred tactic of inspiring confidence in the troops, and it certainly worked, Finn knew of no soldier who wouldn’t follow her into battle. The same couldn’t be said for the likes of Darth Ruin, and the barest thought of him caused a ripple of discomfort in Finn.

“Hot landing in thirty seconds,” came the pilot’s voice over comms.

Finn swallowed hard, pushing down the discomfort.

“Ready up!” Phasma ordered, prompting everyone in the cabin to grab their weapons and prepare to disengage anchors.

Blaster fire pinged the hull, and they came down with a jarring thud. “Drop anchors!” came the order and a chorus of clicks and the hiss of retracting wires filled the cabin. The ramp dropped, opening into a wild snowstorm, and they surged forward.

Red, green, and blue bolts crisscrossed the air, bleeding colour into the blizzard around him as Finn charged through the snow. The plateau village of Tuanul spread out before him, angular shacks of stone brick and metal set in a concentric half-circles. Cover wouldn’t be an option for at least sixty feet.

Light-turret fire strafed a line of troopers not six feet away from him, and Finn zeroed in on the gunner through the haze of snow, darkness and flickering light. He fired twice and saw them fall to the ground.

“Zeroes, Nines, support left flank!” Finn ordered over squad comms. They moved to the left without hesitation. Slip remained at his side.

The ground exploded ahead of him, sending three troopers flying, armour blackened, cracked open. They hit the ground and didn’t move, and neither did he for a moment.

“Fire on that X-Wing!”

The order came from far to his right. X-Wing, that had to be the blast, but he wondered if it was Republic or the rogue agents, the so-called Independent Freedom Coalition. Too much thought, Finn pushed it away and surged forward again. Green and blue bolts hit the snow around him, passed him with only inches to spare, and he returned fire with precision, each shot finding its mark through the storm.

A rock ridge ten feet away would provide cover.

Just a little farther.

Another second more.

Blue flashed in his right periphery and Slip jolted. He stumbled, momentum carrying him the last couple of feet as he crashed shoulder-first into the ridge.

Finn crouched in the reddening snow, setting his weapon aside to assess the damage and see what he could do. Slip grabbed helplessly at his neck, and Finn wrestled his hands away with a brusque, “don’t!” But as he pulled Slip’s helmet off and peeled his neck guard away, bright, steaming blood gushed from the fist-sized hole blasted into his throat. The edges were charred black, and Finn could see bone.

He had nothing on him that would fix that.

Slip gurgled and coughed, blood catching in his ruined windpipe. His bulging eyes filled with tears, and he tried to speak but couldn’t get around the blood and torn flesh. Finn held his shoulders and squeezed, unable to do anything else as all the sounds around him seemed to bleed away. Fear and pain wormed into him, no, _against_ him, and his stomach clenched at the sensation.

Finn closed his eyes. No. He had to control it, he—

Something hit his helmet.

He opened his eyes to see Slip’s bloody hand splayed across his visor. It dragged down his helmet, dropping limply in the snow, and left a smear of blood across his vision.

Finn shuddered. Bile burned in his throat.

Sound rushed back in with a sharpness that all but pierced his ears and he struggled to breathe in as a wave of anger, terror, and pain crashed into him. Another trooper fell dead, another sickening bolt of cold nothingness like a heavy shadow clawing at his sense of being. Finn grabbed his weapon and Slip’s and sank behind cover where he could try and remember how to breathe again.

* * *

There wasn’t any other choice.

Poe knelt and fished the data-chip from his jacket. “You take this and get as far away as you can, okay?” he said, placing the chip in BB-8’s storage compartment. “I’ll come back for you!”

The droid wasn’t having it at first, tried to protest, but Poe just gave him as winning as smile as he could muster. “I’ve gotten out of worse. Now get out of here.” He stood, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder. “Go!”

Reluctantly, BB-8 turned and sped off into the storm, and Poe allowed himself to feel a shred of relief. He swallowed hard and glanced at his X-Wing, and its damaged engine, knowing he’d probably never fly it again.

But he would _fly_ again.

Taking a deep breath, he turned back towards Taunul to take stock of his situation. The storm was beginning to die down, returning visibility to the plateau by the minute, and all it revealed was a bad situation gone worse. Village militia lay dead everywhere, in far greater number than the Stormtroopers. Some of the houses were on fire, belching thick smoke into the sky—he scowled when he noticed the flametroopers doing their jobs.

With their protectors dead, the First Order was free to drag villagers from their homes, corralling them into the centre, and each emptied home quickly set ablaze. The villagers held tight to each other, huddling in a space meant for communal storytelling and mealtime, a grand fire pit surrounded by benches. Poe knew it would be tainted forever by this night, no matter what happened.

The screaming pitched when children were torn from their parents, shuffled off to one of the troop transports, with the struggling parents savagely beaten by rifle stocks if they resisted. Most did.

Movement drew his eyes to the sky where a new ship landed much closer to the village than the troops did, a command shuttle. Poe slowly shook his head, muttering “no” under his breath as he watched the ramp lower. Six black-armoured death troopers emerged first, splitting three to either side and were followed by the towering, black-robed figure of Darth Ruin.

Poe’s stomach sank. The horror stories of Darth Ruin’s utter lack of mercy were well known in the Coalition, especially when it came to civilians.

Thumbing the power setting of his rifle to maximum, Poe eyed the gathered villages and realised Edren wasn’t with them.

It didn’t take long for the First Order to fix that.

Edren didn’t try to run. Two troopers carried him from his shack, arms cuffed behind his back and nose broken, blood staining his mouth. His feet dragged in the snow, and the troopers dumped him on his knees in front of Ruin. When he failed to lift his head, one of them grabbed his hair and forced him to look up. Edren grimaced but made no sound. He met Ruin’s palpable glare with a jutting chin and bloody teeth.

The mask Ruin wore gave away nothing, of course, but it did everything to make him unreadable and unpredictable—a fixed ‘face’ of armour plating and bottomless pits where eyes should be.

“Terrorists and those who shelter them are one and the same!” Ruin’s deep voice boomed into the frigid night air, his vocaliser twisting what may have been normal into a discordant, growl that sent a sick feeling through Poe’s gut. “Our Order has been hard-fought and hard- _won_! Too much of our blood has been shed to let the cowardly and unfaithful weaken us! Now more than ever, we require unity, and that can only be achieved by rooting out weakness and heresy!”

Ruin lifted his arms, palms skyward, voice rising. “One voice!”

“One purpose!” The troopers bellowed back with vigour, lifting their rifles to the sky.

Poe threaded his finger over the trigger.

Lowering his arms, Ruin withdrew his lightsaber and ignited it. A fiery and igneous long blade emerged, the colour of fresh flowing lava, humming and crackling like a living creature as it slowly dripped molten material into the snow. They still had yet to understand how exactly Ruin created such a volatile weapon, but it had to be connected to Snoke somehow.

In a blur, Ruin cleaved Edren’s head from his shoulders and left a trail of embers in the air.

Rage and regret forced him out of hiding and Poe bellowed, firing a high-power bolt directly at Ruin. “No!”

Pressure closed around him from all sides and Poe froze despite himself. His bolt was frozen too, caught in the air, not ten feet ahead of him, and fifty feet away stood Ruin, arm outstretched towards him. His stomach dropped again, and he tried to struggle, but nothing would move without Ruin allowing it.

Two troopers rushed towards him. One wrenched the weapon from his grasp. The other slammed a rifle stock into his gut, sending him to his knees as Ruin finally let him go. Pain radiated through his abdomen, and they hauled him to his feet, hands cuffed behind his back, rifles jabbed into his sides. He walked without prompting. He knew the drill—this wasn’t the first time he was caught.

They pushed him to his knees just like Edren and Poe grunted, trying not to look at the dead Chiss next to him. Instead, he focused all his attention on Ruin, and the Sith crouched to his level, staring intensely. Poe swallowed hard, shoving his nerves aside for a front of nonchalance and refusing to look away or be intimidated by a monster like Ruin. “So who talks first, you talk first, I talk first?”

Ruin’s head tilted slightly. “The heretic gave you what he stole.” He looked at the troopers, standing. “Search him.”

Hauled to his feet again, Poe resisted the urge to fight it as the troopers searched through his pockets and frisked him, taking everything else technological off his person but finding no data-chip.

“Nothing, sir.”

Ruin snorted and looked at the gathered villagers cowering only a few feet away. “Bring him on board for interrogation _after_ he sees what will happen to his terrorist friends first hand.”

* * *

It was Phasma who brought him around, not Zeroes or Nines. She hauled Finn to his feet and pushed the memorial bead from Slip’s gun into his hand.

“Breathe, forward, breathe, forward.”

He muttered the words in unison with her as they marched from the stone ridge to the rest of the gathered troopers. Finn shook his thoughts clear, taking in the sight of villagers gathered around an unlit fire pit, the troopers circling them, and _Ruin._

Cold flushed through his body, but he clamped down on it, repeating the Captain’s mantra until she marched him to take his place in the circle. She left him to speak with Ruin and Finn did his best to pull his thoughts inward, to picture the lake again, but he could still feel it. The fear was so intense it felt like he could touch it.

The head of a dead Chiss lay a short distance in the snow from his body at Ruin’s feet—Edr’e’nva’silan Ciroise’ve. Finn knew he should have felt relieved that the traitor was dealt with. Instead, his stomach continued to twist on itself.

A human man knelt next to the body, held in place by two troopers and facing the villagers—another captive, the traitor’s accomplice perhaps. The man looked directly at him, and Finn swallowed thickly at the desperate fear the man felt. He tore his eyes away, trying to shove it down, he couldn’t let himself feel it.

He couldn’t let them _know_.

“Orders, my lord?”

Finn looked up at Phasma’s voice. Ruin’s responded with full-throated fervour.

“Your siblings are dead tonight because of the heretic and his allies! These people sheltered him, gave him somewhere to hide from his crimes and continue unimpeded! They are no better! They whimper because they are caught, not because they feel guilty or ashamed of their actions!” Ruin boomed, spreading his arms towards the villagers. “Blood demands blood. Our Dark Mother would have it no other way! Kill them all!”

Every trooper levelled their weapon at the villagers, and Finn slowly lifted his rifle, trying not to hear the villagers scream, or cry, or beg. His chest constricted and his heart hammered in time with the rising fear that clawed at his senses like a desperate animal trying to escape. Terrified, wet eyes stared back at him, each face of the villagers horrified and pleading.

Phasma’s clipped command cut the air. “Fire!”

Finn froze up, unable to follow through, unable to do anything but watch as his fellow Stormtroopers lay waste to the villagers. Clothes caught fire, screams of a pitch and intensity Finn had never heard before curdled his blood. Some villagers tried to escape, only to be kicked back into the circle of death, and flametroopers poured on with their incinerators.

It only stopped when the screams did.

A cold, heavy weight fell over him, the emptiness of intense death and pain lashing out at any could feel it, and Finn lifted a hand to his throat, fighting the urge to puke again. He held his rifle so tightly it shook, and his hand went numb on the grip. So many times he’d been able to focus and shut it out, to pretend he didn’t feel it, pretend he wasn’t one of _them_.

Distantly he heard the orders to wrap up and realised everyone was moving away, but he stopped breathing as it felt it. Someone was staring at him.

Finn turned to see Ruin looking at him from across the carnage of burning bodies. Finn shuddered, desperately pulling inward, trying to make himself as inconsequential as possible, but Ruin stared at him for too long.

He knew.

The Darth tilted his head and the bolt he’d frozen in the air so effortlessly shot forward, slamming into a shack on the far side. Another second more and he turned, marching back to his command shuttle with death troopers in tow.

Finn could barely think. He looked around the village and saw squads collecting their dead. There were rites to give, beads to make.

Numbly, he stumbled through the snow in search of Slip’s corpse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m just pointing this out right now. If I appear to get something wrong with the lore, miss a detail or the original context, I don’t have encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Wars lore. I’m just a nerd who enjoys the franchise, went trawling for interesting bits and pieces, took the things I enjoyed, changed the things I didn’t, made up some of my own, and stitched it all together into a horrific goulash for my own amusement.
> 
> And now I’m sharing it with the rest of you because someone somewhere will enjoy this too.
> 
> I posted the first two chapters now but I will try to update every Tuesday.


	2. The Scavengers

The crisp air of early morning swept overhead, funnelling through the cavern’s hole-ridden ceiling to fill its space with whistling. Rey focused on that sound, pictured the snowdrifts above, loose flakes spraying off the topmost curves before they had a chance to compact, and breathed deeply. She felt the cold ground beneath her, the grit against her fingertips, and the way her meditation spot pitched slightly down as if the pressure of her crossed legs had worn a dip in the stone.

EROX said nothing but the minute oscillations of energy that snapped through his system and kept him from keeling over as a hunk of inanimate metal and circuitry became perceptible the longer she concentrated.

She felt stiff by the time she navigated to that point of clarity but once she did she opened her eyes and lunged, breaking into a sprint.

Six stacks of slab rock presented her first obstacle, each one higher than the last and necessitating use of the Force to amplify her physicality. It took half a year to cut and move each piece of stone that made up the stacks, building up strength and discipline, it took longer still to get to the point where she could clear the distance without climbing and using her hands.

She managed the first four with clean jumps, the fifth her foot caught on the edge, and the sixth she barely cleared with a frustrated huff.

A ledge at the top brought her to a gap with anchors on both sides. A rope was attached to the far end and Rey reached out and pulled the rope to her with the Force, securely fastening it to her side of the gap. Once it was taut, she balanced her way across, remembering all the times she’d fallen and failed to right herself in time. Learning how to fall correctly was a lesson on its own, and one broken arm was more than enough incentive to get it right next time.

Balance was easy enough to master without relying on her extrasensory abilities.

Leaving the rope behind, Rey picked up speed and leapt from the next ledge into a tunnel several times deeper than she was tall. A stream of freezing water flowed at the bottom, cutting through the cavern on its way somewhere else. She wrapped the Force around her body and dug her feet against the tunnel wall, maintaining momentum for a scant few seconds before gravity made her push off to the opposite wall and repeat the process. One, two, three, sweat poured down her face and she yelled at the fourth push, just catching the ledge at the end of the tunnel and scrambling onto it, breathing hard.

Time was wasting so she shoved herself to her feet and continued. Her path curved back into the cavern where she jumped down an alternating row of horizontal poles until she was on the cavern floor, another test of athletics and balance without the Force.

Spread out each use of it, that was _meant_ to make it easier, in theory.

Finally, she came to a skidding halt before a boulder than came up to her shoulders, a solid chunk she didn’t cut into shape for the pillars but set aside for the last exercise.

Digging her heels in, Rey mustered all her focus and carefully began to push the boulder. It rocked at first, then settled back into place, and a spark of frustration tried to settle in her. She ground her teeth, but quickly shook her head. Strength without control was recklessness, so she grabbed that spark and held it close, tempering that frustration into determination as her mama taught her.

Exhaling deeply, Rey pushed again, and the boulder finally began to roll through the circular track she’d worn into the cavern floor. She slowly followed, struggling to keep the boulder at an even pace instead of letting it speed away from her. The effort to keep its weight and momentum in check caused beads of sweat to form on her brow, and Rey clenched her jaw, fingers curling in the air. But she managed to keep it steady all the way around until the boulder finally slumped back into its starting position.

“Time?” Rey called, leaning on her knees to catch her breath.

“One minute, forty-nine seconds,” responded EROX, approaching from her left. The articulated plates of his face folded in sympathy. “Unfortunately, you were slower this time by six seconds.”

Her heart sank, and Rey bent with her head low, hands on her hips. All that effort for six seconds lost, she had to be doing something wrong, maybe she overestimated herself, maybe she had hit her limit and this was as far as she could go.

What a _waste_.

A hard, aching lump lodged in Rey’s throat and she exhaled deeply, trying to push the thought from her mind. She just had to train harder, that was all.

Composing herself, she gestured loosely for EROX to follow her and made her way out of the cavern through a snaking tunnel. Smothering grey rock gave way to the Atrova Maze, the winding canyons coated in a fresh layer of snow thanks to last night’s blizzard, glittering in the rising sun. Stubborn evergreens covered the plateaus, standing stoic in the breeze.

A few minutes walking through the crisp, freezing air cleared her head and brought them back home where it protruded from the bottom of a cliff like a fossilised shell, weathered metal partially blending into the rock. The smell of frying eggs greeted Rey as she stepped inside, smiling at the sight of Vace at the kitchenette plating up food.

EROX closed the door and walked passed. “I’ll be in the hangar,” he said, promptly disappearing to do his routine checks on the speeders.

Rey knocked the snow off her boots and moved closer to the ambient warmth of the kitchenette, rubbing her hands. “Smells good, mama.”

“What’s wrong?” Vace asked, looking over her shoulder with pricked ears and piercing eyes.

Rey froze, trying to think of something else to say for a moment before she sighed. There was no point trying to hide it with Vace. She settled at the table and poured herself a cup of hot tea from the pot. “I fumbled a few times and lost six seconds,” she said, and forced a smile on her face, “but I’ll work on it!”

Vace eyed her momentarily and returned to the food. “Just remember not to push yourself too hard.”

Rey hunched her shoulders with a grimace, not sure what else she was supposed to do when normal training did almost nothing to improve matters. “So, are we going back?” she asked.

With an affirming hum, Vace carried two steaming bowls to the table and handed one to Rey, before sitting down across from her. A couple of large fried eggs sat on a bed of salty roast tubers, and Rey dug in.

* * *

Everything they needed was packed onto the speeders, most of it rations, some specialised tools, but a lot of space they left for the haul.

Rey finished securing her gloves, and Vace threw the switch, letting cold air and the late morning light spill into the hangar. She did one last check to make sure her snow mask was firmly in place and rolled her shoulders.

The glint of sunlight hitting metal drew her attention to the hangar proper, where their old home sat empty and disused. The Truth Seeker was an elegant ship, sleek, fast, and powerful. If anyone else knew it was here, they would blow down the doors trying to dismantle it for parts. Rey balled her hands at the thought and shook it away.

“Come on,” Vace said brusquely , switching on her speeder. The engine whined to life, pushing away from the ground enough to let Vace comfortably brace her feet on the footpegs.

“Right, sorry.” Rey quickly mounted and readied her speeder, trying to ignore the pull and avoid looking behind her. She knew it was a dead-end, she _knew_ where that conversation went, and yet she couldn’t help it. It would be another year tomorrow, another year without answers, another year wasted. Rey clenched the handlebars tight.

Vace pulled out of the entrance, and Rey followed. EROX closed it behind them, left to guard the home until they returned. They turned a corner out of the canyons and slipped onto the Goazon Plains where the glare of sunlight bouncing off the landscape was harsh enough to blind the eyes and burn the skin given time.

Stoic herds of mukka had no such issues with their inky, long-lashed eyes and white-grey coats, their shaggy bulk well suited to plodding around the flat terrain, nosing their way through the fresh snow in relative peace, searching for lichen.

Herders kept watch with rifles but made no move to interrupt the pair, merely watching their charges. In the scant warm months, they would sheer excess fur and fashion it into the coats Rey, Vace, and so many others wore. Soft, dense, and waterproof, mukka fur was the best protection against Jakku’s frigid disposition one could ask for.

All too soon the sprawling herds fell behind them, and they slipped back into unbroken whiteness, the striking blue sky, and the glare the sun all around them. The monotony was thankfully short-lived as Rey noted the growing jaggedness of the horizon—the Ship Graveyard. Ragged, angular shapes steadily loomed into prominence, upturned and broken hulls scattered like so much durasteel carrion. The remains of a battle decades since won or lost if you spoke to the wrong people.

Rey shivered despite her warm clothes as they drew closer, an oppressive sense of emptiness slithering at the edge of her feelings.

Disrupted by hundreds of thousands of tons slamming into the ground, the terrain rapidly shifted into slopes, gullies and ravines carved by hundreds of crashing starships, several of them capital ships carrying tens of thousands of crew each. The sheer amount of death in such a short amount of time left the area silent save for the perpetual creaking of ageing metal and the cold wind. No creatures nested here, and no gang lasted longer than a month trying to use one of the old ships as a base.

Curving around the immense bulk of a mostly intact Star Destroyer, Vace had them circle it once before she brought them to a stop near a break in the hull and dismounted. They locked the speeders, took their packs, haul bags, and made their way inside.

The dark and frigid bowels of a wrecked ship turned almost entirely on its side presented innumerable challenges to most scavengers at the best of times. _Most_ scavengers usually went for easier pickings, the smaller vessels, but those were more likely to have been picked clean, wasted effort. The immense Star Destroyers were treasure troves by comparison, especially if you could bypass certain obstacles faster than others.

The climbing gear wasn’t especially needed if you could leap the distance instead, and they did a lot of climbing through upturned hallways and bent turbolift shafts to reach a specialised deck deep within the ship. Such obstacles were spread out enough that it didn't become an issue, but Rey nonetheless found herself flagging where Vace barely broke a sweat.

The orange glow of Vace’s lightsabre filled the hall as she cut through the weak points of a blast door, the stink of burning paint and slag wrinkling Rey’s nose. She looked back the way they came, pointing her torch down the debris riddled hall and keeping her head on a swivel for any unwelcome eyes. There were no other speeders outside, and they’d heard and seen no sign of anyone else on the way in. They should be alright.

An extinguishing hiss brought Rey’s attention back to the blast door, and she watched as Vace drew her arms back, breathed deeply, and gave a forceful push. Dust rattled free of the panels around them, and the weakened door gave in, sending a person-sized chunk of metal flying into the room beyond. Vace quickly grabbed it in mid-air with a grunt, left hand outstretched and fingers curled, unwilling to let it smash into any valuable machinery. Instead, she carefully set it down with a dull thud.

Vace gestured for her to follow, carefully stepping through the still-hot frame of carved durasteel.

Rey fastened her torch to her shoulder and ducked inside.

According to their schematics, the room within was once some kind of communication hub to keep track of on-board calls and transcripts. Tens of thousands of people living on one ship was a lot to keep track of so their computers were especially powerful to keep up with it all. That meant valuable parts and the fact they had to cut their way in here meant no one else had touched it.

Rey set her pack on the floor and fished out her tools to start opening up panels and disconnect choice pieces for the haul bags, and Vace did the same. They got to work without a word, so used to the routine of it and falling into familiar patterns. Rey couldn’t help but let her mind wander as her hands ran on muscle memory.

This mass carnage would probably happen again, as it always did, history was rife with wars, massacres, all manner of conflict. If the rumours they heard in town were anything to go by, it already was—The First Order. Ideological descendants of the Empire she and her mama salvaged the failures of, and no less brutal or dogmatic.

Rey scowled, pulling free a heavy-duty processor. Horror stories from distant worlds spoke of purges, stolen younglings, and indoctrination, religious zealotry the galaxy hadn’t seen in centuries.

Vace cut through her distraction. “What is it?”

Sighing, Rey packed away her prize and got off her knees, stretching out her back and shoulders. “It’s just this place, what it represents,” she said, turning around to find Vace shoulder-deep in the power box that once regulated the room’s energy usage. She had snaked her arm through a sea of cables, and her height necessitated an awkward half-crouch against the wall. Whatever she had a hold of finally twisted out of place and she pulled out a high-capacity breaker.

Vace straightened, eyeing the piece with distant disdain. “What it represents is a dead end. Empires fall, this one more than any other.”

“And it keeps coming back, millennia ago it was the Sith Empire, then it was just the Empire, now it’s the First Order.”

“You know we can’t do anything.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

Vace finally looked at her, shoulders tense. Rey held her gaze, trying in vain to read Vace’s stare—it gave away nothing.

Vace turned away with a deep sigh and crouched over her pack. “We should take a break for food. Then we can bring this to Niima.”

The sting of dismissal was no less biting for its familiarity.

* * *

Niima Outpost was one of the largest settlements on Jakku, built from the remains on an old military outpost and taken over by mining barons, chief amongst them Niima the Hutt, whose enforcers kept the peace through intimidation and sheer presence.

Rey had been inside the Outpost’s walls a handful of times and the difference was night and day. Pristine, decorated streets, permanent stores, lovely estates, security everywhere, and full to bursting with indentured servants scampering about to fulfil their masters’ whims. At least half of the wealth flowing through it came from the trade she and her mama plied, and none of their like would ever see even a fraction of it.

The line moved and an old, scarred Rodian man handed over his pickings, a small collection of intact star fighter parts that took some luck to find given how the smaller vessels were far more likely to get mangled on impact. Rey recalled his name was Ozeen Fex, a loner for the most part, but she gathered over the years that he used to be a soldier of some kind, and a disgraced one at that which had to be why he found himself gathering scrap for a Hutt.

“Hm, this haul will get you five barter chips.”

Unkar Plutt’s slimy, condescending voice got her hackles up, and Rey kept her back turned, attention fixed on the cleaning stations just across from them. While the corpulent Crolute operated out of a secure and cosy kiosk built several feet off the ground and embedded in the town walls so he could loom over the line of scavengers here to collect their pittance, others worked diligently by fire to clean up their haul. They sat in three rows of tables and benches barely sheltered by upcycled awnings, young and old scrubbing away the grime and thawing out valuables—or what they _hoped_ to be valuables.

The citizens of Niima loathed witnessing their toil to the point that the walls of that side of town were heightened to block them from view, often casting the scavengers in shadow.

A sick, sinking feeling settled in Rey’s stomach, and she swallowed the urge to run. She looked away from them and her eyes fell on a little boy, whose kneeling mother handed him a steaming canteen, hands hovering in case he spilled it on himself. He gave it back to her once he was done, and she wiped his face, kissing his head with some unheard comment that made him giggle.

Rey's throat constricted. She turned to watch the line instead.

The line moved and Vace put their haul of hard-to-reach valuables on the counter. Unkar looked it over with the intensity of a mother with their newborn, his wide, pallid mouth stretching into a grin, eyes twinkling at the price each piece would fetch. Vace cleared her throat and he glanced at her, all delight fading.

He snorted and slapped their payment on the counter with a self-satisfied smirk. “This haul will net you three barter chips,” he said.

Rey folded her arms to avoid clenching her hands, and Vace took the coins after a second’s pause.

“Come,” she muttered in passing, and Rey turned to follow her to the market, a ramshackle line of stalls closely guarded by Niima’s white-plated thugs. The chips got them a kilo bag of tubers and two one-kilo bags of grain, one for each.

They loaded the food onto their speeders and left Niima Outpost behind them in the setting sun, allowing Rey to slowly relax and take in the beautiful spread of orange and pink sunlight playing off the snow.

* * *

EROX reported nothing of note when they returned, as usual, and Rey went through the motions of unpacking, doing her best to avoid looking at the ship again. She avoided Vace too, not intentionally but lost in thought, knowing tomorrow would be just another day no matter how much she wished otherwise.

“Rey.”

She blinked, looking up from her dinner. Vace stared from across the table, hands in a steeple, her food untouched. Rey hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t eating.

“Yes?” Rey asked, hoping this wasn’t what she thought it was.

Vace’s ears folded back, and the line of her mouth tightened into a flat line. “I understand it’s difficult, but it’s what your mother wanted. She wanted you safe, and you’re safe _here_.”

Again.

_Again._

Rey just about resisted throwing her fork on the table, exhaling sharply. Vace didn’t blink, stoically watching her, and Rey wished she wouldn’t. She wished Vace would cry, yell, anything that showed an actual emotional response—but that was asking too much. Vace continued her spiel, so familiar Rey could recite it in her sleep. “Sulia will return eventually, and this will all become a distant memory, but for now, we must stay put and keep our heads down.”

Trying to reign in her emotions, Rey wiped a hand down her face and looked away. “What if she never comes back? What’s the point of having a code about strength and honour if _this_ is all we do?”

Vace didn’t answer her, and Rey screwed her eyes shut. “Mama, it’s been ten years. We haven’t heard anything, and we haven’t _felt_ anything. What if something happened to her?”

Tears ran hot when she opened her eyes, and Rey roughly wiped them away, still unwilling to meet Vace’s stare. And Vace seemed just as unwilling to answer her again. The silence felt like being buried in an avalanche, and Rey struggled to breathe against its weight. She got up from the table with a muttered need for fresh air and Vace did nothing to stop her.

The light of late sunset had yet to fade as she stepped outside, forgoing her mask and trudging off towards a fallen pine. The cold air bit at her face but she ignored it, settling down on the tree to try and calm her breathing, and ignore the prickly weight in her chest that felt like it was burning a hole through her.

The uncertainty was the worst part of it. It would be easy in one way to just assume Sulia abandoned them, Rey’s memories from that part of her life were hazy at best, but she knew that wasn’t it. Even if it was, trading certainty for rejection offered an entirely different and all too caustic pain to contend with.

No. Rey preferred the uncertainty, for all its maddening possibilities.

Finally getting her breathing under control, she leaned back on her perch and stared at the slowly darkening sky. Stars twinkled into existence one after another and Rey allowed herself a small smile, remembering a time when the stars were her home.

A starship caught her eye, rising from the horizon, a gleaming spear that raced towards the void above and all its freedoms. Rey’s throat constricted, and she coughed, wiping her eyes again.

“ _< <Hey! No, stop!>>_”

Alarmed binary echoed off the canyon walls, and Rey flinched, immediately trying to locate the source. It wasn’t far away enough to distort. She leapt to her feet and ran through the snow, following the distressed beeping around the nearest bend.

The droidspeak rang out again in a shrill whistle. _“ <<Let me go!>>”_

Rey wasn’t surprised to see Teedo of all people harassing a droid, but she still felt no small measure of scorn seeing the little astromech he was attempting to wrangle for parts. He was trying to secure the net to the saddle of his mukka, and if he got away, the droid was scrap. “Hey!” she yelled, approaching quickly, “what do you think you’re doing?”

“Piss off!” Teedo hissed as he looked up from his ‘catch’ and glared, narrowing his beady little eyes. “This one’s mine!” He dismissively waved his pointed crop at her, but Rey ignored him, taking a short knife from her belt to cut the net open.

Teedo tried to whack her over the head, and she grabbed the crop before it made contact, glaring at him. The diminutive reptoid leaned back, baring his needle-like teeth in annoyance. He spat between them and yanked the crop out of her hand, but made no move to try and hit her again.

Relieved, Rey finished cutting the astromech free, and it quickly rolled away from Teedo to hide behind her. _“ <<Thank you! Thank you!>>” _it chirped. It was a BB-unit, white with orange trim, and remarkably pristine for a droid on Jakku. EROX was the only other exception she knew of, but he was a special case.

Grumbling, Teedo gathered up his ruined net and slapped his mukka over the head with the crop. It snorted sharply and lurched into a steady walk.

The BB unit rolled forward a little and shrilled, _“ <<you’re a bad person!>>”_

Rey shushed it, watching Teedo stiffen in the saddle and glare at them. He didn’t stop walking away, however. Not that she disagreed with the droid, but she’d already angered the alien enough for one day.

She turned to the astromech and crouched. “Let me see you,” she said, and the droid spun around to face her. The spherical base had no sign of external damage, and the mobile half-dome head was almost completely unharmed, save for the bent antenna sticking out of it. “I can fix that for you,” she offered, holding out a hand with a smile.

The BB unit tilted its head forward, and she carefully unplugged the antenna and straightened it out. “So where have you come from? We don’t see droids like you around here. Not in one piece, anyway.”

“ _< <I can’t tell you. That’s classified.>>”_

“Oh, really? Me too, big secret.”

“ _< <Really?>>_”

Rey smirked and plugged the straightened antenna back in. “May as well be,” she said, sighing. “Can you tell me your name?”

The BB unit drew its head back a little as if deliberating then chirped, _“ <<I’m BB-8. Who are you?>>_”

“Rey. Are you lost?”

“ _< <I was separated from my master, Poe. I don’t know where he is. Can I stay with you until morning?>>_”

Rey blinked at the request, remembering how she left and feeling that prickly hot weight slide back into her chest. She sighed and got to her feet, bracing her hands on her hips. “I… I don’t know.”

BB-8 released a quiet, tremulous noise of apprehension, turning his head around to look at the darkening canyons and unforgiving plains. _“ <<Please? Just for the night? I promise I won’t be any trouble.>>_”

Sighing again, Rey swallowed the bundle of nerves in her throat and nodded, turning on her heel to start walking home. “Okay, fine. Just let me talk when we get in.”

BB-8 whistled happily and quickly rolled after her to keep pace. The noise lightened some of the weight she felt, reminding her she’d done a good thing today and helped someone. It was insignificant in the scheme of things but meant everything to the little astromech, and that could be enough for her.

It only took a couple of minutes to return home and step through the door. The table was clear, and Vace stood in the kitchenette, diligently cleaning and storing away leftovers.

Rey clenched her jaw and forced herself to speak as calmly as possible. “Mama, I ran into Teedo again. There was a droid in his net, but I saved him.”

Vace stilled and looked over her shoulder, attention quickly shifting to BB-8. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned around, slowly drying her hands. “Saved him,” she muttered, shaking her head. “You have no idea where this droid came from and you lead it to us?”

BB-8 rolled behind her legs and Rey frowned. “He just needs a safe place to stay the night and then he’ll be gone in the morning, it’s not a big deal.”

Vace narrowed her eyes, fur bristling. “Rey, you know better than this!” she snapped, spreading her hands. “How could you make the same mistake _twice_?”

Five years in the past and Rey’s heart still stung at the reminder. She tried not to picture Kole’s face, dirty, scarred, and still able to smile like nothing could beat him down. It seemed so harmless at the time to rescue him, a young scavenger her age, alone and struggling to survive. They would still be friends if not for Kole selling them out for a ticket off world. At least a dozen people died by Vace’s hand to protect them, though Kole was long gone.

Shaking her head, Rey blinked the sting from her eyes. “This isn’t like that! He couldn’t even get away from Teedo on his own.”

Vace’s ears folded back. “Yes, to prey on your compassion! _Anyone_ of means could have paid Teedo to set up such a scene and ferry this droid into our midst, and you didn’t hesitate to do exactly as they wanted!”

Rey clenched her hands, stomach hard, and frustration boiled up her throat. “It’s better than shutting everything out! All you care about is hiding! You never talk about mother except to tell me why we need to stay here, like she’s just an excuse! I’d rather risk being found again than turn into you!” she snapped.

Vace flinched, shoulders dropping as a cold, guarded look smothered the fiery anger in her eyes, and Rey swallowed against a hard lump in her throat that wasn’t there a moment ago. Silently switching her attention to the droid, Vace could have burned a hole through BB-8 the way she stared at him. When she finally looked away, Rey expected some kind of rejection, a final say on the matter to destroy the droid or eject him from their home, but Vace sighed deeply and turned away to hang up the dishrag. “One night,” she said flatly. “You can help him find his master tomorrow.”

BB-8 whistled his appreciation, and Rey watched as Vace walked out of the room without another word. Part of her wanted to follow, apologise, but she heard the door of Vace’s room hiss shut and lock.

She’d be thankful for the distraction tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know :3


	3. Going Rogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW - First scene contains mind invasion and accompanying descriptions that some might find distressing. It's the same scene of Poe being interrogated by Kylo as in the film but put into words that get across how horrifying one can imagine that would be.
> 
> Nothing significant changes from the film scene, so you can safely skip it if it's too uncomfortable.

It wasn’t his first time in a First Order interrogation room, but it was turning out to be his longest stint in one and Poe could _almost_ admire them for that level of determination. They _really_ wanted to know what he’d done with the information, too bad for them he was thoroughly trained to withstand this kind of punishment.

Still, he’d hoped they would move him to a cell by now. Strapped to an interrogation table and held at an angle was no way to sleep and he might actually be able to think of an escape plan without being distracted by his legs cramping up.

He hoped BB-8 was safe.

Thoughts of Taunul snaked to the fore, and Poe shook them away. He couldn’t let himself dwell on it, or the horror would do the interrogator’s jobs for them.

The doors opened, and the Stormtrooper standing guard stood to attention as Darth Ruin entered. Warmth fled the room, cooling to the point that Poe could see his breath in faint whorls. A chill ran down his back, and he licked the sweat and dried blood from his lips, forcing a casual smile on his face.

Ruin held his hands behind his back and began a slow walk around the table, gesturing for the Stormtrooper to leave them. The door hissed shut, and Poe worked to empty his mind again, just as Leia taught him, and shut out everything else. The only reason Ruin was here was to succeed where others failed, and Poe never had the opportunity to test his mental training against a Sith.

What a _lucky_ day he was having.

“Your resistance is admirable,” Ruin spoke softly, disappearing behind him. “But I am out of patience.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet its real frustrating, huh?” Poe rasped in response, trying not to think about the last time he’d had a drink.

The table jarred abruptly upright, forcing him to stand. Poe’s heart hammered, and he swallowed hard, forcing his mind blank. Ruin could hurt him in ways the droids and organic torturers couldn’t, the dark side of the Force was a terrible thing to witness, but it was just pain. He could survive the pain. He could _resist_ the pain.

Ruin walked back into his field of vision, standing only a few feet away. The sight of Edren’s head falling from his shoulders flashed through Poe’s thoughts. “You have one chance to freely tell me what you did with the heretic’s information before we begin.”

Poe shook his head, mustering as much resolve as he could to withstand what was coming. “You’re a disgrace to the name Organa,” he muttered, a defiant shot in the dark he hoped made Ruin bleed, just a little bit.

A low, seething growl emanated from Ruin’s helmet, and he lifted his hand at Poe’s face. “Remember you chose this,” he hissed.

For a moment there was nothing, and Poe tensed, focusing all his attention on a point over Ruin’s shoulder. An involuntary squirm ran through his body from the pit of his stomach to his throat, like something being drawn out of him on a hook. Tension hit his temples, a pair of screws quickly drilling into the bone and bringing tears to his eyes.

No.

He realised too late this was different.

Ruin brought his hand closer until his fingertips hovered over Poe’s brow, and it felt like a knife pierced through it and into his mind. Ruin came with it, a fiery, barbed presence in his thoughts that burned and sliced with every invasive movement. Poe pulled against his shackles in a futile attempt to get away from it, instinctively trying to kick Ruin and shove him back only to bruise his ankles in the effort.

Ruin’s voice was a white-hot brand in his mind, pushing deeper and deeper where he didn’t belong and wasn’t welcome. “Where did you hide the information?” he snarled.

Poe screamed involuntarily, lurching against his restrains despite the pain it caused him because it was better than feeling Ruin in his head. He couldn’t give it up. He had to get away. Somehow. He couldn’t tell Ruin—not about—

Ruin’s fingers made contact with his brow, slamming his head against the table. “Where is it?” Ruin grated out, his masked face inches away. The pain was a spider web of blades digging through his mind, ripping through the barriers Poe had so confidently held up to this moment, and they wrenched the image of BB-8 to the surface despite his screaming.

The smile in Ruin’s voice made him want to curl into a ball. “Ah. There it is.”

* * *

Finn struggled not to fidget in his dress uniform, hands clenched at his sides, scenes of blood, fire, and snow flashing through his mind. But he stood perfectly still with the rest of his siblings, listening as Archon Sarakk finished chanting a final send off to the fallen. On the last, descending note, lesser priests pushed dead troopers into individual slots of the memorial forge. Transparisteel hatches closed behind them, and Finn forced himself to watch as Slip’s body was engulfed in green light.

“For some of you these deaths are the first,” said the Archon from her dais, regarding them with sombre understanding. The bittersweet smell of Ilumian ice roses billowed from a censer clipped to the decorative belt of her grey robes, filling the dark chamber with the scent of grief. “For others, this is just another reminder of our purpose.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “The Dark Mother knows your pain, She feels your loss, and the blood you spill for Her. She cries out for justice, for you _know_ who is truly at fault for these deaths, has _always_ been at fault for the suffering of our brothers and sisters!”

Finn tried not to feel the accusatory stare of his squadmates. Zeroes and Nines stood just behind him, in the peripheral, hands clasped tight behind their backs. Restraining themselves, perhaps.

The Archon lifted her hands, fury in her eyes. “Their vainglorious decadence brought us here, pushed us to the Frontier, forced us to contend with threats they could never face in their deepest nightmares! But we survived, no, we have _thrived_ because of the Mother and Her champions! Emperor Palpatine began Her great work when he sent Admiral Karst to our aid, and the Republic murdered them both!”

Shouts of anger rose from the gathered troopers. Finn kept his eyes on the light.

Sarakk continued, “Emperor Kaullost tried to make them see reason, tried to extend mercy, and the Republic spurned him! They spurned the Mother’s gifts and pushed him and our forbears into the Frontier! Emperor Kaullost continued Admiral Karst’s work in bringing Her salvation to us all, and the Republic has _always_ resented our survival! They will never see us as worthy, only as savages, so what is your answer, children?”

“One voice!” All of them roared immediately, and Finn murmured along. “One purpose!”

The Archon smiled, bowing her head. “As one, we survive. As one, we shall bring the Republic to its knees. Use the memory of your fallen siblings to remind you of that, for every death brings us one step closer to fulfilling our Mother’s will.”

From the ashes of each body, the priests produced a dark red memorial bead and affixed it to a tough loop of cord. They set aside more for direct family, but plenty of ash remained. Phasma handed the beads to their respective squads, the leader if they were alive, and Finn swallowed thickly when Phasma reached him.

“Squad Leader Dorne,” she said quietly, pressing the bead into his waiting hand. He continued staring at the forge, wishing against all reason that Slip would climb out of the ashes unharmed and grinning. The weight of the bead in his hand brought a sting to his eyes and Finn closed his fingers around it.

Once the beads were passed out, Sarakk nodded to the priests, and each threw a silver lever, venting the remaining ashes into the void to join with the Mother.

The survivors broke apart and spread around the chamber, sitting together to remember their fallen and reinforce their bonds to each other.

Zeroes and Nines left the chamber without a word.

Finn didn’t move and didn’t notice Phasma return to his side. “They’ll understand eventually,” she said, hands behind her back, staring at the forge the same as him. “And if they don’t, we can reshuffle them.”

He blinked, tearing his eyes away from the forge to look at her. It was always strange to see Phasma out of her armour and see there was a living person underneath she did it so rarely. But there she was in her dress uniform instead, vibrant blue skin, cropped black hair, red eyes, and countless scars, one of many of Chiss living in the First Order. Like Edr’e’nva’silan—Finn shook the image of his headless body away.

“No,” he croaked. He cleared his throat and spoke again, “no. I… I want to make it work. I’ll get through to them.”

“I don’t doubt you. Just remember, all your lives rest on being able to trust each other. You’re as much at risk as they are if they cannot trust you to lead them. If they can’t accept what happened wasn’t your fault, then you know to come and see me.”

“I know. Thank you, Captain.”

Phasma nodded and left him be, and his skin itched the longer he stood alone surrounded by mourning camaraderie, the melange of roses and ash swirling around his head. Finn turned and walked out of the room, blinking as the comparative brightness of the Finalizer’s hallways glared at him.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, threading the memorial bead through his fingers until it hung from the cord.

“Squad Leader Dorne.”

Finn flinched at Ruin’s voice, turning quickly to his left. Ruin towered over him as easily as Phasma did, but instead of feeling secure, his stomach dropped. He swallowed hard and stood to attention. “Yes, my lord?”

Ruin said nothing at first, and the weight of his presence bore down on Finn like a choking shadow. The only one who was more connected to the Dark Mother was Emperor Kaullost, Ruin was a close second, and it showed in the way warmth died the moment he entered a room. He was everything the Sith aspired to be, and Finn tried not to look or even think about Ruin’s lightsabre or how easily it could cleave through him should Ruin feel like it.

When the weight grew nearly unbearable Ruin finally spoke again. “Your instincts may have helped you to hide for this long, but a rogue, _untrained_ adept will not be tolerated. Once our mission on this miserable rock is completed, you will be removed from the Stormtrooper Corp. and shipped to Ilum where you will formally begin your training as a Sith.”

A slick, slimy sensation crawled from the pit of his stomach and up to his throat, and Finn swallowed the rapid flood of saliva in his mouth. His stomach lurched and he fought it down, beginning to shake despite himself.

A cold chuckle escaped Ruin’s helmet. “Now, now, think of it this way.” He motioned to the memorial bead Finn held. “Had you been trained from the beginning, your friend would still draw breath. But don’t worry, now that I’ve broken our guest, it’s only a matter of time before we can leave this graveyard, and you can ensure such a thing never happens again.”

Ruin put a hand on Finn’s shoulder as he passed, squeezing tight enough to bruise, and left.

It felt like the floor was about to fall out from under him.

He stumbled away with deadweight limbs and found the nearest refresher to empty his stomach. A pair of officers ignored him as he dove into a cubicle, talking about the Coalition prisoner and Ruin. Finn shut it out when they mentioned him.

Once his guts stopped twisting themselves into knots, he flushed and leaned back against the door, hands to his face.

This wasn’t happening. Finn had seen people he knew taken away and come back different, colder, like Ruin, like his Knights, like every other Sith. It would happen to him too. Whatever they did at the academy, they would do it to him as well, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

It should be a gift.

“He’ll probably be executed for all to see.”

“Serves the scum right.”

The officer’s fading laughter cued Finn to slink out the cubicle and wash his mouth, then his face. He refused to look at his reflection, afraid it would be the last time he looked like himself. He shook his head and stepped out of the refresher, fastidiously straightening his uniform.

Phasma, he caught sight of her turning the corner and quickly approached. She arched a brow in question and stopped, studying his appearance. “Dorne, did something happen with your squadmates?”

Finn shook his head, struggling to keep his breathing under control, and struggling more to find the words. Phasma put a hand on his shoulder, thankfully the unbruised one, and her touch was firm but far gentler than Ruin, immediately grounding him. She lowered herself to his eye level and asked in a quieter voice, “Finn, what happened?”

Licking his lips, Finn managed to respond in a mutter. “R-Ruin… Darth Ruin is having me transferred to Ilum. I’m Force-sensitive, Captain.”

There weren’t many times Finn could recall Phasma looking surprised, fewer still he could remember her looking horrified, but maybe he imagined that because the look was gone as soon as he blinked. The usual guarded calm dominated her features instead, and she straightened away from him, the muscles of her jaw flexing. “What a fine captain you would have made,” she murmured, her eyes distant. Her hand slipped from his shoulder.

The cold sensation of abandonment tried to tear his legs out from under him. Finn steeled himself against it. “What do I do?” he asked.

Phasma refocused on him, frowning. “You’ve been told what to do,” she said flatly.

Finn clasped his hands behind his back to avoid wringing them. “I…I know that, but with respect, Captain, I want to stay here, as a soldier. I’m better suited to this.”

She hesitated, a twitch at the corner of her eye giving Finn a second of hope that she might be able to fix this somehow, but he knew that was a childish hope. Her frown deepened. “You’ve been given a great honour, Dorne, do not squander it,” she said. “I have other matters to attend to.” Her tone and expression softened slightly. “You’ve always excelled at adaptation; it will serve you well on Ilum.”

Another moment and she was gone, passing him by, letting him go—abandoning him to Ruin and the academy. Finn shook the thoughts from his head. No, he knew there was nothing Phasma could do. It was the law, after all.

A law that would almost certainly get him killed or force him to become someone else in the process of survival.

There had to be a way around it. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to become another Ruin.

The officers and their conversation rushed back to him. The Coalition prisoner was a pilot.

His thoughts lurched into high gear, and Finn moved before he could think it through. He marched through the Finalizer to his barracks and changed out of his uniform and into his armour. He slipped the memorial bead around his neck, took his rifle, and marched to the nearest medbay where he easily requisitioned a stim to replace one he used on Jakku. He never used any, but they wouldn’t know that until it was too late.

Heart hammering in his chest, Finn rode the lift down to the prison deck and strode through three cell blocks to reach the interrogation wing. Only one other trooper was guarding the prisoner, a fresh recruit by the name of Sylens.

Finn stepped into the room with a leader’s confidence and gestured his rifle at the prisoner, who stirred from his arrival. The man looked as rough as Finn expected, with dried blood on his temple, sweat-slick hair, and drained of colour. “Darth Ruin wants the heretic, get him up and cuff him,” Finn ordered sharply, causing the young recruit to jump into action. The prisoner wobbled as he was stood up, and once the cuffs were on him, Finn grabbed his shoulder to wheel him out of the room. “Stay here.”

“Yessir!”

Leaving the green trooper behind, Finn marched the prisoner back through the cell blocks to the turbolift. Just before they reached it, he looked around to check if anyone could see them and shoved the prisoner in a maintenance alcove when he saw no one.

The prisoner sputtered at the sudden push, and Finn ducked inside. He quickly took the stim and jammed it into the prisoner’s neck, where it hissed with the release of a medical concoction that would improve the man’s condition, at least temporarily. Finn needed him awake and alert.

It didn’t take too long for it to kick in and the prisoner inhaled deeply, blinking rapidly as if clearing his eyes. He fixed on Finn and scowled, but Finn quickly took off his helmet and held up his hands. “Shh, shhh! This is a rescue, okay, I’m getting you off this ship.”

“What?” The man leaned back, utterly baffled. “Who are you?”

“A Stormtrooper, obviously,” said Finn, shaking his helmet a little.

The man shook his head. “Then why are you doing this?”

The words stuck in his throat. Weakness tried to buckle his knees, and Finn pushed it away. “If I don’t get away they’re going to send me to the academy. I don’t know what’ll happen to me when I get there, but I don’t want to find out. I _don’t_ want to be a Sith.”

A spark of sympathy settled in the prisoner’s eyes. “And you don’t know how to fly, do you?”

Finn shook his head. “Can you fly a TIE fighter?”

To Finn’s surprise, the man smirked as if challenged and a fire burned to life in his dark brown eyes. “I can fly anything,” he said, then grinned. “We’re gonna do this.” The man was _excited,_ and Finn couldn’t tell if it was relief or the thrill of danger, but it was probably both. “What’s your name?”

“Finn, Finn Dorne.”

“Poe Dameron.”

With that, Poe swept his cuffed hands towards the hall, “lead the way.”

Back in his helmet, Finn could pretend he was in control and calm as he marched Poe through the ship, avoiding areas he knew Ruin to frequent until they finally made it to the Finalizer’s secondary hangar. Activity was higher than expected, and Finn realised too late that this was about to be much harder than he hoped, but he couldn’t turn back now.

He kept his rifle pointed at Poe’s back and marched towards a troop transport, the placement of which took them very close to the TIE bays. Finn forced his breathing to slow, watching every officer and soldier around him for any sign of alarm, and broke into a run when he felt they were obscured by the transport.

Once the cuffs were off, Poe climbed in first and Finn after him, dropping into the gunner seat. He threw his helmet off, cold sweat beading on his brow, heart hammering against his ribs so hard he expected them to break. He’d never been inside a TIE fighter, and everything jumped out at him as something potentially disastrous to touch. Thankfully, Poe’s piloting skills kicked in as he intuited his way around the cockpit until the TIE fighter lurched out of its bay.

They made it ten feet before something pulled hard on the left side, and Finn’s stomach dropped. He sputtered, “the fuel line!”

Poe swore under his breath and began searching the control panels. “I’ve got it, keep them off us!”

Finn grabbed the foremost controls in front of him, testing that they moved the turrets and didn’t interfere with their escape attempts. Blaster fire pinged off the hull, and he flinched, turning the guns to fire back, but his hands froze, the weight of Slip’s ashes around his neck heavier than before.

Poe yelled at him. “Fire or they’ll bring us down!”

Finn clenched his teeth and fired, trying to aim at the ground, _trying_ to aim far enough away that it would just throw people instead of killing them. But he felt it anyway, a cold spot, another bead for someone else. The troopers kept firing. Finn blinked the sting from his eyes, firing once, twice, three times more—the fuel line finally disengaged, and they rocketed out of the hangar.

Fighting to keep control, Poe pushed back into his seat. “Woah, this thing really moves!” he grunted, making a tight turn to stay close to the Finalizer. Before Finn could ask what he thought he was doing, Poe quickly explained, “we’ve got to take out their point-defence while they can’t hit us or they’ll shoot us down as soon as we try to get away!”

Cursing, Finn focused on his targeting while Poe flew them close enough to reach out and touch the Finalizer’s hull, far closer than any cautious pilot would dare fly, but Poe was right. They were _too_ close for the point-defence systems to target them. This range was for suicide fliers or boarding craft; either way, it was too late to shoot. Point-defence batteries unfolded from the Finalizer’s hull, and Finn fired as Poe flew by, leaving shattered weaponry spinning off into space. One side was all they needed to escape, but Finn was so focused on taking out each gun that he failed to notice what side Poe was flying on. It wasn’t until Poe veered away from the Finalizer that he realised where Poe was headed. He was facing out to space instead of Jakku.

Finn twisted in his seat to see Poe was indeed flying _towards_ the planet. “Wh-what are you doing?! We have to get out of here!”

“I have to get down there first. I left my droid behind in the attack. BB unit, orange and white, one of a kind!”

“A droid!? The First Order is right there, and you’re going back for a droid?”

“It’s not just any droid, he’s carrying the intel I came here to get, and the First Order knows about him! If they get to him first, I’ve failed my mission! That’s not going to happen!”

Frustration coiled hotly in his stomach, and Finn cursed again, slumping in his chair.

The blue blaze of a torpedo filled his vision.

The next thing Finn knew the cockpit rocked violently and his head bounced hard off an overhead panel.

* * *

He flashed in and out of consciousness. The tumbling cockpit, the shrill protest of half a dozen alarms and sensors, the bright, orange glow of uncontrolled re-entry, the sudden darkness and growing cold after—he didn’t remember pulling the ejector. No. He didn’t. _Poe_ did, unbuckled so he could reach through and get Finn out safely.

"I've got you!" he said fiercely, pulling hard on the release.

The chair lurched against him and the noise of the cockpit fell away, leaving only the whistle of frigid air tearing at Finn's body. He slipped back into blackness.

When he finally came back to the world of the living, all was silent, still, and freezing. Finn shivered and unclipped himself from his seat. Pain throbbed across his body, but nothing felt broken, so he forced himself to stand. Snow crunched underfoot and came up to his shins. He briefly wished he’d taken snow gear instead of his regular armour.

The light of a full moon bounced off the surrounding snow, showing his chair touched down on open plains with what looked like an extensive canyon system about a mile ahead. He looked around and saw nothing behind him or to his left, but a black, smoking shape stood out to his right and Finn stumbled towards it.

The cold chewed at his joints, but he pushed through it, trudging onwards until he came to the fiery remains of the stolen TIE fighter. The torpedo hit the left wing, leaving most of it shattered. Whether the connecting strut was damaged before or after the crash, the wrecked wing was entirely detached now, sticking out of the snow like a gravestone some hundred feet away. The other wing was still attached but barely, crushed to the body, and the cockpit lay cracked open like an egg, lit fuel sizzling everywhere. Smoke billowed into the sky, filling the air with a sour, acrid stench.

They were lucky.

Or _he_ was lucky.

Numbly, Finn searched the cockpit and found Poe’s jacket hanging on a jutting piece of the canopy frame, but nothing else, not even his rifle.

Both chairs were missing—Poe might be alive.

Finn backed away, jacket clenched in his right hand, a sick, light-headed feeling creeping over him.

He just helped a prisoner escape, he _attacked_ the First Order, _killed_ his own—he’d gone from a potential elite of society to a heretic within an hour, and he was _stuck_ on Jakku with the Finalizer looming overhead.

His stomach lurched, but there was nothing to expel so Finn pushed the rising panic down as hard as he could. He made quick work of stripping off his armour, all it would do was identify him faster, and it wasn't exactly built for insulation. The black pants, boots, and long-sleeved shirt underneath would have to do, and after a moment’s hesitation, he slipped on Poe’s jacket as well.

The only weapon he had left was a combat knife that he clipped to his belt.

Falling back on his survival training, Finn headed for the canyons in search of shelter. He could see they were topped with trees so he would hopefully be able to get a fire going and survive the night before trying to meet up with Poe.

If the First Order didn’t find them first.

He shook the unhelpful thought from his head, focusing on what was in front of him. The walk to the canyons was monotonous and left him feeling exposed, a black spot on a white background, and he pushed himself to hurry through the snow even as his legs began to protest. He only slowed down once he reached the canyons, following a winding trail of shallower snow that seemed well-trodden if all the prints were anything to go by.

Out of the reflective plains and into the winding canyons, deep shadows became commonplace. Unease wormed in his stomach, and Finn pushed away the sensation of being watched, searching the canyon walls for any paths that would bring him up to the trees.

A hiss was all the warning he got. A snowdrift erupted beside him and something launched at his shoulder, biting quickly. Its teeth caught in the leather of Poe’s jacket.

Finn pulled his knife and stabbed at the mass attached to his shoulder. It shrieked and let go, hopping back on four legs with wide, hand-like paws, half his size and covered in short, thick white fur. Four black eyes glared up at him over a large, toothy mouth. Bright red blood stained its flank and dripped onto the snow.

His stomach clenched at the sight. His legs froze.

It jumped at him again, latching on to the same area and knocking him over in the snow. The teeth pierced this time and fangs sank into his flesh, followed by a hot, painful feeling of pressure. Finn angled his knife and rammed it into the creature’s ribs. It yelped and tried to get off him, but he grabbed the back of its neck and twisted the knife. The creature slowly stopped wriggling in his grip as the life went out of it, and it slumped, allowing him to roll out from under it.

Feeling woozy already, Finn staggered to his feet and kept moving, bloody knife clutched in one hand, the other hanging limp. He blinked hard, pulling himself up from slouching. He tried to hold on to the adrenaline and stumbled through a bend in the canyons.

Lights.

A structure embedded at the bottom of a canyon wall, like the shell of an ancient beast, smoky windows lit up from the inside—a home—safety, help.

Finn struggled forward, almost collapsing half-way there but he caught himself and thudded into the door, banging the hilt of his knife against it. His thoughts swam like a basket of eels. He hit the door again and weakly called for help.

He nearly fell in when a droid opened the door, unlike any he’d seen before. It was humanoid, plated all over but sleek, with a matte black finish, and its face had articulated parts to simulate expression, which it used to look alarmed. Behind it stood two women, a large Cathar with cybernetic limbs and a pale human girl.

His eyes drifted to a much smaller droid beside them, an astromech—an orange and white BB unit.

Finn collapsed in the doorway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know :3


	4. Fly Free

Vace moved first.

“EROX, take watch,” she said, scooping the injured man into her arms. His head lolled, eyes fluttering, and a bloody knife dropped from his hand. Vace turned to bring him inside, thrusting her chin at a row of storage units by the kitchenette. “Get the medpac!”

BB-8 beeped incessantly, but Rey didn’t hear it. She hurried to retrieve the medpac while EROX took his sniper rifle from its shelf above the door and ducked outside. She picked up the ‘medpac,’ a homemade box of assorted medical supplies, and quickly brought it to the table where Vace set the man down. He was human, shorter than both of them, with warm, dark brown skin, and his hair was buzzed short. Removing his jacket and shirt revealed a healthy, well-fed, and fit body, something rarely found together on Jakku outside the towns. Other than his shoulder and a small gash on his brow, he carried no visible signs of physical hardship.

There was a heavy, dark red bead hanging around his neck, but Vace took Rey’s attention from it as she gestured to the box. “He needs antivenin, it’s a jaalador bite,” she said, inspecting the wound.

“ _< <That’s Poe’s jacket!>>_” BB-8 shrilled at her feet.

“Your master?” Rey blinked, staring at the droid, then the jacket.

BB-8 whistled affirmatively.

Vace barked at her, “Rey!”

Jumping, Rey quickly fished around the box, picking out a vial of clear fluid and a clean hypo. They had several vials of antivenin for just such an occasion. Even if jaalador bites weren’t immediately life-threatening for a reasonably trained Force-sensitive, they were incredibly unpleasant and could quickly kill most regular folk. She carefully drew the correct amount as directed by the label and handed it to Vace. “Good,” she murmured, confidently sliding the needle into the man’s flesh and slowly depressing the plunger until all the antivenin was gone. She set it aside and nodded to Rey. “Right, I’ll deal with his shoulder, you take the head.”

Rey nodded, and they got to work, passing irrigation bulbs to clean, flexclamps to staunch bleeding, and finally bacta patches as needed. Jakku provided many experiences in treating each other’s wounds, but Rey wasn’t as confident about doing it as Vace was. Thankfully, the gash was a small injury.

It wasn’t until they turned him over to treat the back of his shoulder that they paused.

There was writing at the base of his neck, clean, clinical aurebesh in stark white detailing pertinent medical details and an ID number.

SC-FN-2187.

Unease bled from Vace freely, and Rey looked at her, frowning. “What is it?”

Vace’s ears folded, and she grimaced. “He’s a Stormtrooper.”

The words hit like a slap to the face, and Rey swallowed, staring at the unconscious soldier in their home. The First Order was on Jakku.

BB-8 let out a worried series of chirps and whistles. “ _< <He has Poe’s jacket! You have to ask him what happened to Poe!>>_”

Vace grunted and continued treating the man’s shoulder. “Rey, get the cuffs.”

* * *

He wasn’t in a First Order brig when he woke up. Finn tried to sit only to find his hands wouldn’t come with him. His wrists were cuffed to the cot he was on.

The room around him was relatively cosy, mostly decorated by furs, and he was situated in an alcove, some kind of reading cubby based on the physical and holobook texts lining the shelf above him. The rest of the room was a living space, including a kitchenette on the far side and a dining table in the middle.

Alarmed chirps filled his ears and the orange and white BB unit he saw earlier rolled towards him in a manner that could at best be called accusatory. Following the droid were the two women.

The Cathar had a presence that commanded attention and a glare that demanded respect. She was a brawny, imposing figure on par with Darth Ruin, with rusty orange fur and a short, black mane of hair. Dark stripes crisscrossed her rugged features, with cream patterning filling in the gaps like a mask from which intense, dark blue eyes stared down at him. She also sported a cybernetic arm on her left side.

Next to her stood a pale human girl, a little taller, on the leaner side but still muscled. She wore her dark brown hair in a row of small tails, and her brown eyes invited more compassion than the Cathar, who was clearly in charge.

They both dressed for the cold climate, locals, probably scavengers or wild folk who scraped by on hunting and foraging. But he remembered the sleek, expressive droid and shook both thoughts away.

“We know you’re a Stromtrooper,” said the Cathar, crossing her arms. She had a deep, hard voice that gave away little emotion.

His throat dried, and she continued. “We treated your wounds and saw your imprint. I’d talk quickly and explain what you’re doing here with a Coalition man’s jacket.”

It felt like the world was ready to crash down on him and he couldn’t help it, the words came fast and jumbled as he blurted out everything that happened in the last 24 hours from Taunul and Slip’s death to his escape from the Finalizer and now. At some point he started crying but just powered through, no hitched breath or sobbing, his eyes simply overflowed as he got further and further into recounting this almighty _mess_ he’d gotten himself into.

“I don’t want to be a Sith,” Finn muttered, sniffing. “I _never_ wanted to be a Sith.”

Sympathy dominated the girl’s face, she didn’t look at him with horror or hatred, and Finn couldn’t decide if that was better or worse, but it made his chest hurt all the same. The Cathar was different, hard-faced and unreadable. She approached him slowly and crouched, bringing herself to his level. “Why?”

Finn blinked, thrown by the simple question. “What?”

The Cathar tilted her head, studying him. “You don’t want to be a Sith. Why?”

“Are you serious…? Have you ever met a Sith?”

“I almost certainly know more about the Sith than you do so I’ll ask you again. You would have had power, authority. Why turn away from it?”

Her stare was too intense to hold. Finn slumped, staring at the ceiling so he could gather his thoughts. “We're told its an honour, that it's a sign of being favoured by the Dark Mother, that the anxiety is natural and there's nothing to be afraid of but I've never been a believer. I fought for the _people_ , and I was _proud_ to fight, it was my duty to protect them from the dangers of the Frontier."

"Becoming Sith would have put you at the vanguard, you would have had even greater chance to fight for your people."

"You're right. But they _feel_ wrong, like they don't really belong here with the rest of us, like something is _missing_. Ruin is the worst of it, but they all feel like that on some level, and we're told it's normal, that they're 'void-touched' and it's a blessing. It's all wrapped up in our faith and I never took to it."

"Why?"

He sighed, frowning. "My mentor, she didn't grow up in the First Order. She never said anything openly but when I doubted she didn't shut me down, she just made sure I wasn't open about it. I always went to her when I had questions, and I had a lot as I got older. There are plenty of people who don't believe but it's a part of us whether we like it or not, and it keeps morale up in the Frontier. But this isn't the Frontier." His stomach hardened and Finn sat up, finally meeting Vace's stare again. "Whatever happens at the academy, _no_ _amount_ of power or authority is worth it.”

The Cathar watched him for a moment. He wondered if she believed him, if it would matter at all or if they were going to throw him to the dogs because it was too much trouble. Instead, she grunted in approval and unlatched the cuffs holding him in place.

Finn stared at her, unwilling to move at first. She gestured for him to sit up and he did so, slowly rubbing his wrists.

Tossing the cuffs onto a crate, the Cathar pointed to herself, then the girl. “My name is Vace. This is my daughter, Rey.”

Rey smiled at him, and Finn awkwardly smiled back. He expected to wake up any second now and find himself in the brig or interrogation.

A light on the BB unit’s head started flashing, and they all looked at it. The little astromech chirped and whistled, quickly looking at Rey, Vace, and back again. “What is it? What’s happening?” Finn asked, tensing up as the droid continued its animated chirping.

Vace pinched the bridge of her nose and her lips pressed into a thin grimace.

“Poe has a tracker on his belt,” said Rey, and Finn started at her upon realising she could understand droidspeak. “Apparently he’s activated it, which means he’s alive, but he needs help.”

Vace threw her hands in the air, the fur around her neck fluffing up and her ears folding. She marched off to retrieve something from a cabinet across the room.

Rey looked worried for a moment. "Mama?"

Pulling a belt holster and blaster pistol from the cabinet, Vace turned around while strapping it into place. “Don’t open the door for anyone,” she said sternly, walking over to the front door where she pulled on a cold-weather coat. “You,” she pointed at the BB unit, “with me.”

The droid beeped an affirmative and quickly rolled away, following her through the back door.

Rey rubbed the back of her neck and eyed him. “So, when was the last time you ate?”

His stomach answered for him with a loud growl, and Finn sheepishly wrapped his arms around his waist.

Rey smiled, “I’ll get you something.”

* * *

He’d had worse days, he was sure of it, but Poe found it hard to recall exactly what those days were when he had a pack of local carnivores trying to make a meal out of him. They already made a mess of his leg. They got a taste—Poe cursed and shifted as far back on the ledge as he could, but now and then one of the skulking beasts would jump, claws scrabbling just short of his perch and he’d swear all over again.

A deep and painful chill was setting into his hands and the tip of his nose, and he cursed the beasts once more for good measure. He’d had a nice little fire going under a leaning rock and was just about to collapse thanks to the stims wearing off before they came in looking for an easy meal. He should have been more careful, but all he cared about at the time was getting warm and sleeping off the whole experience.

Now he was freezing, injured, and no closer to finding BB-8. His generous hosts hadn't thought to search his belt buckle for anything of value so he hoped the little guy would find _him_ no problem.

Wondering if Finn survived the crash just left him picturing more of his new ‘friends’ and he tried not to assume the worst.

Exhaustion tugged his eyes shut.

One of the beasts jumped again, and their claws caught the edge, snarling eagerly. Poe jolted and quickly kicked with his good leg, dislodging the animal. It yelped and hit the snowy ground with a satisfying thump.

The whine of a speeder touched the edge of his hearing. Poe straightened, searching the dark canyon for movement. Another beast tried their luck, scraping the edge and failing to hold on. Poe drew his legs in as tight as he could, grimacing against the sharp pain in his right.

Headlights curved into view at the far end of the canyon to his right and Poe forced himself to stand and wave, trying to flag it down, hoping it would stop and help. He could barely make out the rider, but they headed straight for him and the beasts, and at fifty feet a shrill, familiar whistling hit his ears.

“ _< <Poe, we’re coming!>>_”

His heart soared. Poe laughed despite the pain, slumping against the rock face.

The rider quickly fired a blaster pistol at the beasts, sending them running when one took a hit and shrieked like a kicked cat.

When it slowed to a stop only ten feet away, BB-8 rolled off the back of the speeder, chirping, “ _< <I found allies! This one is called Vace!>>_”

“This one can introduce herself,” Vace muttered, approaching his ledge. “Are you hurt?”

She had a deep voice, affirming, authoritative, and Poe sat up as best he could. “Yeah, they took a chunk out of my leg.”

Vace grunted and held out her arms. “Lower yourself off the edge, I’ll help you down.”

Poe nodded and carefully slid himself over the edge until her hands were supporting his legs, and she helped him down the rest of the way without too much pain. She slipped a strong arm under his and supported him over to the speeder where she had him sit down so she could look at his right leg.

BB-8 helpfully pointed a light at it, revealing the extent of blood-soaked fabric and ripped muscle. Without an edge to cut his trousers with he’d torn what he could to tie it off and stop the bleeding.

While Vace got to work, Poe tried to get a better look at his rescuer, but since she wore a full snow-mask, gloves, and a bulky coat, it was hard to tell what she looked like. The best he could guess was humanoid, so he turned his attention to BB-8 and grinned. “Good to see you, buddy.”

“ _< <You scared me!>>_”

“I know, I’m sorry, but we’re gonna be okay.”

“ _< <For now. You always get into trouble.>>_”

Poe snorted, only to wince as the disinfectant spray hit his wound. He shook it off. “Hey, how’d you meet anyway?”

Vace didn’t look up from her work, wrapping his calf. “My daughter found your droid, then your defector friend found _us_ ,” she said coolly, “he also had a run-in with the local wildlife. He’s fine.”

Relief hit Poe hard knowing Finn survived the crash too, he deserved a chance to prove himself, and if Poe could convince him to go a step further and join the Coalition, Leia would absolutely want to meet someone like Finn. But he could think about that when they were off Jakku.

Once Vace finished binding his wound, she lifted BB-8 onto the speeder and got them underway, back to wherever she and her daughter called home. Poe just hoped it was safer than his ill-chosen campsite.

* * *

Rey was full of questions, most of which concerned the First Order, and Finn did his best to answer between mouthfuls of smoked meat strips and bland hot tea, but he had questions of his own. He felt his hosts were Force-sensitives like him and they had no love for the First Order, but they didn’t seem like Jedi. If they _were_ Jedi, they would have killed him. At least, if the stories were true and a worming sensation at the pit of his stomach told him how unlikely that was.

“Who are you, anyway? I thought you were scavengers but your droid—”

“EROX.”

“Right.”

Rey crossed her arms, one shoulder propped against the wall at the foot of his cot. “We are, sort of. We didn’t always live here.”

He drained his mug. “So where’d you come from?”

“I don’t remember. We lived on the ship since I was little.”

“You have a ship?”

“The Truth Seeker. This used to be a smuggler den.”

Finn frowned at her half-way through another bite, details building up in his mind. “You’re hiding,” he said quietly.

Rey hunched her shoulders. “So are you, at least for now.”

“But from what? For how long?”

“Ten years today, I was nine when we arrived. I… don’t remember what from, just that my mother said something dangerous was after us, and she left to draw it away. She was supposed to come back when it was safe.”

"What was her name?"

Rey winced and the cold abrasion of grief lapped against his thoughts. Finn exhaled sharply, controlling the urge to shy away. "Her name is Sulia," she murmured. She stepped away from the wall and took his empty mug. “You should try to get some rest," she said gently, "you’ve been through a lot.”

He nodded wordlessly, and she walked away, giving him space to settle down. The irrational urge to run out the door tried to take control of his legs and Finn shoved it away, forcing himself to lie down and shut his eyes. He thought about the lake, of angry, turbid waters crashing against the shoreline, and focused on making it calm again.

At some point, he dozed off for what felt like an hour or less only to be awoken by BB-8’s excited chirping. He sat up in time to see Vace walk into the room with an injured Poe slung around her shoulders.

Finn immediately got up to help lay Poe down on the cot, taking a seat on the padded bench next to it once he was down. An exhausted grin dominated Poe’s face.

“Hey, you’re in one piece,” he drawled.

Finn managed a strained smile, “yeah.” It was all he could manage as his throat tightened, and his eyes stung from relief. If he’d gotten the man killed by _using_ him for that barely planned escape—Finn banished the thought from his mind.

Poe nodded weakly. “That’s good, that’s good,” he slurred, promptly passing out.

Worried, Finn looked up at Vace, and she shook her head. “He’s just exhausted. He’ll be fine with rest.”

“Why do I hear a but?”

“The First Order will be looking for you. We need to leave.”

“Leave?” said Rey, stepping in from the front door. Enough light came in with her that Finn guessed the sun was rising. “We’re leaving?”

Vace turned and made for the door. “Yes, get the speeders ready for Niima. EROX will pack while we’re gone.” With that, she stepped outside, leaving Rey looking both bewildered and excited.

* * *

Rey could barely keep her thoughts straight. It felt like she was vibrating, and her heart raced all the way to Niima Outpost.

Barter chips were for scavengers and credits were for citizens but credits Vace had. They needed to go to a street called Bunker Row, stores and housing repurposed from military barracks and warehouses. It was where the town began before Niima moved in, forcing the merchants to pay for the privilege of not selling their wares in the freezing weather or be driven out by her thugs. The barons followed soon after.

The sun had broken the horizon by the time they arrived, and folk were already going about their lives, ferrying supplies or messages, looking for work or browsing market stalls, all of them trying to avoid the attention of First Order patrols that walked the town unimpeded. Most had no luck, and the Stormtroopers appeared to be stopping people at random and demanding information.

Rey clenched her jaw and stuck close to Vace’s back.

They needed long-term supplies, sealed rations, bonding tape, a new welder, and some small but critical replacement parts for air and water filtration. Each time they came out of a store, Rey held her breath, watching their surroundings for any signs of hostility as they slowly loaded up the speeders. The Stormtroopers were present every time, harassing, handling, and shoving folk away when they didn’t get their answers.

For once Niima’s enforcers were nowhere to be seen.

“Almost done,” Vace murmured, ducking into the last store. Rey followed her after a moment. Ship parts and tools were everywhere inside, hanging on hooks from the ceiling and lining densely packed shelves. Rey kept her eyes on the door while Vace got what they needed.

The giddy, vibrating sensation died down, replaced by a tension that pulled taut the muscles of her back and neck. Her thoughts drifted to Taunul and the way Finn’s eyes deadened recalling it.

Vace passed her with a quiet “come on.” She carried a sealed crate of replacement parts for life support. They left the store and quickly secured the box to Vace’s speeder.

“That’s her! _She_ took it from me!”

Teedo’s reedy voice hit her ears like a whip. Rey turned to see the little Hutt slime pointing her out to a couple of Stormtroopers. Even with the snow mask on, he recognised her by the speeders. The troopers started running towards them, one yelling commands to freeze, the other alerting the rest.

Vace snarled and threw her hand out. The Force slammed into the approaching trooper and sent them flying back into their partner with bone-breaking impact. Startled screams rang out around them and they jumped onto their speeders, rocketing down the street and out of Niima.

Six First Order speeders raced after them across the plains, catching up bit by bit on the open terrain until Rey swore she could feel them breathing down her neck by the time the Maze was in reach.

Vace signalled to separate, and at the first split in the canyons they took different paths, forcing the First Order to do the same.

The disruptive roar of multiple speeders rushing through the Maze echoed all around her, but Rey knew the canyons well, confidently navigating the turns. One of the troopers inched alongside her and lifted his blaster. Rey clenched her teeth and threw her hand at him, electricity rippling down her arm and out through her fingertips. A thin blue jolt, hardly lethal, but enough to make him to jerk away from her, wrenching the handles of his speeder to one side and turning his vehicle too far. He smashed into the canyon wall and immediately fell behind her in a tumble of fiery wreckage.

No longer harried, Rey focused on the tangle of narrow, coiling passages ahead of her. She allowed the remaining two Stormtroopers to get within ten feet of her before accelerating. Heightened reflexes were the only reason she didn’t smash into the wall at the first tight curve. Neither of her pursuers was as lucky, they both turned too late and crashed into each other, then the wall, and exploded behind her.

She lowered her speed for the rest of the tangle and sped up again once she was out, eager to return home, hoping Vace had similar luck.

A slender, winding path through the canyons brought her back home, and Rey smiled when she saw Vace speed into view on the far side without a trooper in sight. They pulled into the hangar, and Rey wrenched off her snow mask, breathing hard.

“Are you alright?” she asked, but Vace was already guiding her speeder towards the Truth Seeker. Her chest tightened and Rey quickly did the same, bringing her speeder to the ship’s cargo lift.

Vace quickly pulled off her mask and gloves. “Help EROX get everything on board. I’ll get the ship online.”

Heart pounding in her ears, Rey ran to the house proper and found EROX and Finn packing things away in the main room. “The First Order spotted us! We need to get everything loaded, _now_!”

EROX dutifully lifted two crates onto his shoulders and ducked through to the hangar while Finn baulked. Rey held up her hands. “We were chased, but we lost them in the canyons. It’ll be okay, I promise.” Whether he believed her or not, he nodded and hoisted one of the crates, following after EROX.

As far as she could see they had all the essentials packed up, save for a few personal items she quickly stuffed into a satchel, Force related educational texts, lightsaber tools, and Sulia’s Holocron. The purple, gold-framed octahedron was more sentimental at this point than practical, but Rey would sooner lose her hands than leave it behind, so in the satchel it went. She also made sure to grab the cuffs, they'd been useful countless times before, no doubt they could make use of them again.

The Truth Seeker’s engines roared to life, and a wave of emotion crashed into her. Rey coughed, shaking it off—now wasn’t the time. She turned with the satchel slung across her back and hauled a crate of food into her arms, hurrying through the back door into the hangar. Finn and EROX passed her by, and she could see the ship’s cargo lift was down, the speeders and a few crates already loaded.

On the way back, Rey threw the switch for the hangar blast doors and machinery groaned to life above them, light and snow spilling into the dim chamber as the ceiling split open.

Time stretched out, fretful images of the First Order rushing in blasters hot flashing through Rey’s mind, but it took only a few minutes of jogging back and forth to load all the boxes. Once they were sure everything was loaded, Vace hurried into the hangar with Poe in her arms. “Get in!” she barked, BB-8 whistling right behind her.

“ _< <They’re coming! I saw TIEs!>>_”

They piled onto the ship, and EROX sealed the boarding hatch just as the deep boom of an explosion sounded from the front door.

Vace carried Poe down the central hall and into the medbay, setting him down on the single bed available. “Rey, Finn, guns!” she barked again, darting passed them into the cockpit where EROX followed only a moment later.

Rey gestured quickly, “this way!”

Finn followed her to a ladder just behind the cockpit that would take them where they needed to go. He climbed down, and she climbed up into a familiar seat. She clipped in, and the chair slid backwards along a rail to the topside gunner dock where it turned around and anchored with a dull clunk. Grabbing the wired-in earpiece, Rey opened the channel between the gunner docks and the cockpit. “Finn, the comm should be right in front of you to your right, mounted in a white socket just below the canopy.”

He didn’t respond.

The ship lifted off and cleared the blast doors, turning with a slight tilt just as Rey caught sight of three TIEs rocketing towards them. The deflector shield didn’t come online in time. Strafing fire clipped across the Truth Seeker’s right side in explosive, sizzling thuds, rocking the ship. But the armour held and Vace didn’t waste another second. The Truth Seeker shot through the air, angled for the stars.

“Wait!” Finn’s voice finally came through. “Stay close to the ground! It messes with their sensors!”

The ship quickly angled back down, swerving hard to the left with the three TIEs in hot pursuit. Rey grabbed the controls and zeroed in on one of them, firing two quick bursts of yellow energy. One missed, one clipped the wing and trailed smoke through the air but it kept flying.

A shot from Finn blasted the wing off in a spray of fire and metal, sending the TIE into a death spiral. It hit the tree line, snapping a long line of branches before it sank out of sight.

The Maze gave way to the plains, and the remaining TIEs strafed again. Crimson bolts shot wide. Rey clenched her teeth. She returned fire on one, but the nimble starfighter managed to avoid it, bobbing and weaving in unpredictable ways to make itself a harder target. Finn seemed just as hard-pressed to hit the other one as it adopted the same tactic.

Old starship wreckage began to pass them by, and Rey realised they were already at the Graveyard. The Truth Seeker turned sharply, twisting as it went, and the hull of a Star Destroyer engulfed Rey’s view barely six feet away. A burst of fire and metal signalled one TIE fighter colliding with a protruding command tower Vace knew was there.

The last TIE avoided the hazard and levelled out, firing on them. The deflector shield finally flickered to life. Starbursts of red and gold raced overhead, electrical booms that rattled through the canopy, but the shield held. The TIE fighter dipped below her field of vision before Rey could get a clear shot at it and she sucked air through her teeth, hoping Finn could see it.

Clearing the Star Destroyer, Vace made another hard turn. She followed the flow of the landscape, dipping, swerving, and rising sharply to bring them alongside the same Star Destroyer she and Rey scavenged only yesterday. She skimmed the surface too, racing the length of it to a gap between the bridge and the ground.

The Truth Seeker knifed easily through the space, and so did the smaller TIE fighter, but it had nowhere to go as Rey fired at the same time as Finn. They both hit a wing and sent it spiralling into a snowdrift.

Vace angled the Truth Seeker skyward, and the bright blue rapidly faded, giving way to the deep blackness of space.

Her throat constricted and Rey blinked a sting from her eyes. She glanced at Jakku falling behind them, the curve of the planet growing prominent, haloed by a thin band of atmosphere that held in everything except for them. She held her breath, counted, watched it slowly grow smaller in her field of view. A sharp, pale grey shape caught her eye in the distance—a Star Destroyer, a recent design, the First Order.

They were headed away from it.

Vace spoke firmly over comms. “Exiting gravity well, jumping in 3, 2, 1…now!”

* * *

Once the rippling blue and white kaleidoscope of hyperspace washed over the darkness of real space Finn sagged in his chair, head in his hands. Cold sweat drenched his brow, his hands felt clammy, they shook, and so did his shoulders. The weight around his neck felt heavier than ever and he dropped one hand to the bead, clutching it tight.

His heart ached.

Wiping his face, he returned the earpiece to its socket and fumbled for a moment until he found the disengage lever. His chair unanchored and quickly returned him to the ladder where he numbly climbed up and out of the gunner shaft.

Rey was already out. He could see her standing with Vace and EROX in the cockpit. She looked triumphant, excited, and Finn pushed on as neutral a mask as he could stomach as he stepped inside.

“What now?” he asked.

“We settle in for a couple of days,” remarked Vace, not even glancing at him. She was preoccupied with a panel to her left that showed what efficiency their life support systems were operating at—all were less than 50%. He was so distracted by everything else he hadn't noticed how stale the air was. Another panel above it showed a lot of red meters too, engine efficiency was down, they were low on fuel, two of six thrusters flashed orange, and so did the shield generator—the ship was in dire need of maintenance. It was a small miracle they got off Jakku alive. “I have work to do,” she muttered, and left.

“I can show you around if you want?” Rey offered, the concern in her eyes causing Finn to fixate on the shimmer of hyperspace instead.

He shook his head. “No, thanks, I’ll explore on my own.”

Rey nodded and Finn swore for a moment she looked nervous before she smiled politely and walked out. EROX paid no mind to any of them, monitoring ship readouts just as Vace had done.

Finn counted to ten, took a deep breath, and slowly went about exploring the Truth Seeker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know :3


	5. Refuge

Images of a fire-swept city and terrorised peoples scattered from Ruin’s mind at the intrusive chirp of someone requesting entry. He opened his eyes to the dark walls of his meditation chamber, lined with reminders of his accomplishments, trophies from conquered worlds and slain foes. He stared at the crown jewel of the collection, the half-melted helmet of his grandfather staring at him from a bowl of black Mustafarian sand, once a visage of supreme authority and power, now just a reminder of weakness and lost-potential, and a warning.

The mighty Darth Vader was brought down by _sentiment,_ but Ruin had proven himself stronger than that by murdering his uncle and the last of the Jedi—the memory of absolute darkness flooding his mind went through him like barbed wire. Ruin trembled and gripped his knees tightly, breathing hard, heart pounding, and he fought down a treacherous whimper.

It was a moment of triumph. The _only_ thing he feared that night was failure.

_"Ben!"_

He flinched, willing Luke's horrified face out of his mind, and the faces of every other Jedi he slew, from masters to padawans, confused, terrified eyes demanding answers they would never have.

"The Force shall free me," he muttered, "the Force shall free me."

The pilot’s words rattled through his mind.

_Organa._

Ruin curled his lip and stood, striding out of the chamber instead of allowing his guest in. A pale and diminutive human man stood in the entrance hall and Ruin narrowed his eyes as he sensed the officer’s fear. “What is it?” Ruin asked sharply, standing close enough to make the smaller man sweat. He noted the badge on the officer’s jacket—Lt. Dopheld Mitaka.

“The mission on Jakku, sir,” began Mitaka, swallowing when the words seemed to catch in his throat. “It was a failure. The droid escaped on a vessel with no known silhouette or manufacturer. It was assisted by a female Cathar and a human girl.”

Roiling heat flushed through Ruin’s body. He clenched his hands and leaned down, seething out a command, “go on, Lieutenant.”

Mitaka trembled and averted his gaze. “Niima the Hutt cooperated with our forces. The Cathar goes by Vace. Both left limbs are cybernetic replacements. The pair arrived on the planet a decade ago and moved into an abandoned smuggling den. They worked as scavengers instead of joining society proper, and made no move to integrate or involve themselves in any community. They kept no friends or professional ties.”

“And?”

“Speeder footage shows that the girl, Rey, can harness lightning.”

Ruin tilted his head ever so slightly. “What about the Cathar?”

Mitaka cleared his throat. “She threw one of the soldiers attempting to apprehend them without touching him, and broke his arm in the process. The Hutt tried to _make_ an enforcer out of her five years ago, but she killed all of Niima’s bodyguards with a lightsaber and choked the Hutt near to death. She demanded they stay out of each other’s way instead. They’re _both_ adepts.”

The descriptions and timing filtered through every possibility he could think of and Ruin brushed passed Mitaka with a muttered, “dismissed.” He marched through the private wing reserved for him and his Knights, crimson-armoured guards silently patrolling the halls, and came to a comm-room that would connect him directly to Emperor Kaullost.

Closing the door behind him, Ruin input the relevant code and stepped onto the holo projection plate, light flickering to life around him. A call was already in progress.

Directly ahead of him loomed the lanky, imposing figure of Emperor Snoke Kaullost, black robes and silvery armour cinched to his lean frame, his pale, mangled features bare for all to see. His obsidian eyes briefly acknowledged Ruin’s presence, and a sensation of deep, oppressive cold fell on him like a mantle made of lead.

“Ah, _Ruin_ , how nice of you to barge in unannounced.”

The voice of Armitage Hux hit his ears and Ruin suppressed a snort of open derision, not even giving Hux the courtesy of a greeting nod. They were equals on flimsi as Supreme Commander of the First Order Army and the Lord of Warfare, sharing military responsibility between the mundane and the Force, whilst the navy fell to Grand Admiral Capara Doriender, but Ruin could hardly bring himself to see it that way. Hux had his uses, but he was a man like any other, finite and powerless when it came to beings like Ruin and the Emperor.

To his credit, Hux never appeared intimidated, only as vexed by Ruin’s presence as he was by Hux’s.

Ruin clasped his hands behind his back. “I come with news important to our Emperor, but it can certainly wait for you to finish, Commander.”

Hux rolled his eyes and returned his focus to Snoke, who watched them with characteristic intensity. “As I was saying, I believe it would be wise to accelerate the deployment of Savage Dawn. It’s the most likely target for these security breaches, and if we move quickly, neither the Republic nor the Coalition will be able to stop it.”

“See it done,” said Snoke, his voice a deep, gravelly rasp against the ears.

Hux bowed, shot a sidelong glare at Ruin, and faded from view.

Snoke narrowed his eyes. “What is it?”

Ruin lifted his chin and spoke confidently. “I believe an old enemy of yours may have resurfaced.”

* * *

The Truth Seeker was longer than it was wide, blade-like in shape and possessing only one deck. Crew quarters and communal rooms took up most of the left side, a comm-room and medbay sat on the left and right just behind the bridge, and towards the back, there was a workshop, an extensive study, and the engine room. To the upper right sat a galley, and just across from it was the refresher. The rest of the right side was taken up by the cargo hold, which had two speeders, dozens of crates holding who knew what, some exercise gear, and two rows of shelves holding old hydroponic equipment.

The only thing left was a locked door next to the crew quarters.

Finn stood in front of it with his arms folded, wondering what it was. The captain’s quarters, most likely, but why it was locked was another matter.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Vace dropped from a maintenance hatch next to him. She straightened, wiping her hands on a rag, and arched a brow at him as if _he’d_ done something weird.

“Hey, uh, what’s this room?” he blurted out, gesturing to the door in question. Her eyes flicked to the door, and her expression tightened in a look that made him regret asking.

“It was mine and Sulia’s,” she said flatly.

Finn wanted to smack himself. Instead, he hunched his shoulders and nodded. “Okay. I guess that’s the whole ship. I should check on Poe.” He turned quickly and walked away, trying to ignore the burning sensation in his face. Rey had lived here with her family, of _course_ the only locked room was for Rey's parents. He cursed under his breath.

He quietly stepped inside the medbay to see Poe sitting up and talking to BB-8. The tension dropped from his shoulders and Finn smiled involuntarily. “Hey, good to see you awake,” he said.

“Hey!” Poe grinned. “That was some escape, huh?”

“Yeah. How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good all things considered.”

“Good.”

Poe glanced at BB-8, who chirped at him, and he started as if just remembering something. “Oh, do you know where we’re headed?”

Finn blinked as he realised he had no idea what their destination was, he was so preoccupied with distracting himself and learning the layout of the ship that he forgot to ask. He was just happy to be going _away_. “I’ll ask,” he said and ducked out to find Vace. She was still outside the crew quarters, cleaning some clear, oily residue from her claws and walked with him back to the medbay.

Poe looked at her expectantly, and she folded the cloth into her belt before answering. “We’re headed for Takodana in the Tashtor Sector. The ship needs repairs, your droid needs a disguise, and _I_ need to talk to an old friend of my wife. She owns the place. We’ll be safe there.”

“We need to get the data-chip to the Coalition as soon as possible. The New Republic is in danger.”

“It’s been in danger for years. The infighting, the money, the corruption—even if you believe it to _truly_ be in danger now, we will not survive another encounter with the First Order if we do not get this ship fixed first.”

“The Coalition can repair your ship.”

“I don’t know the Coalition yet. I know _Maz_ , I trust her and her people, and they are already familiar with the Truth Seeker. Even _if_ I trusted the Coalition, we only have enough fuel to reach Takodana. Unless you are headquartered between here and there?”

“We aren’t. But how long is this going to take? We can’t waste time while the First Order burns through the Rim.”

Vace shook her head. “A week, probably less.”

Poe grimaced and shoved his hands through his hair, but he said nothing else so Vace turned on her heel and stalked off.

Releasing a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, Finn moved closer to the bed and offered Poe as best a reassuring look he could muster. “You should probably get some more rest,” he said.

Poe nodded and flopped back, sighing. He seemed to give Finn a once over, and Finn rubbed his arm, only for the creasing leather under his hand to remind him what he was wearing. “Oh! Sorry, I meant to give it back already,” he said, quickly attempting to shrug out of the jacket, but Poe reached up and grabbed his wrist.

Finn froze, staring at him, and Poe smiled warmly. “No,” he said, letting go and patting Finn’s arm. “Keep it. It looks good on you.”

Heat flushed his face for the second time that hour, and it was much softer this time, not so pointed, and far less familiar. Finn cleared his throat, adjusting the jacket so it sat comfortably again. “Thanks,” he murmured. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Poe nodded and settled back down, his easy smile now a grin. Finn nodded back and walked stiffly from the medbay, suddenly in need of a distraction. He found one in seeking out Vace to help with maintenance, replacing all the old or expired filters, and changing in new oxygen plates, bringing the air and water systems back into a comfortable efficiency range.

The hours passed quickly enough, and by the time everyone was settling down, it should have been easy to sleep. He was safe, the bunks were comfortable, but all Finn could do was toss and turn, so he quietly left and crept his way down the hall to the workshop.

A variety of benches and tables filled the room, each with different toolsets for different jobs. Finn circled to a bench meant for weapon tooling, with a collection of blasters and vibro-swords hanging on the wall above it. He took a rifle off the wall, and a sense of cold, collected calm and needle fine focus washed over him.

Frowning, Finn turned it over in his hands, recognising it as a CZ-311 Enforcer, a rifle manufactured by Czerka Arms. It was a popular weapon with bounty hunters thanks to its highly customisable and modular nature, so much so that it could be found in the Frontier as well. Scuff marks all over showed its age and heavy usage, but it appeared well-taken care of.

It occurred to him that the weapon belonged to Vace and the surety of that alarmed him. He _couldn’t_ know that, but holding the weapon told him it was hers, it _felt_ like her, forceful and steady.

The door to the workshop hissed open, and he spun around to see Vace standing in the doorway. The vest and shorts she slept in revealed her left leg was cybernetic up to the mid-thigh and left arm up to the shoulder. She looked pensive and distant, and Finn moved to replace the weapon, only for her to shake her head. “You can look,” she said.

“It’s yours, right?”

“It was.”

Finn looked it over again and gently placed it back in the rack. “What about those?” he asked, motioning to the vibroblades, some single blades, some double-bladed.

She eyed them for a moment. “My wife's, she used them to train me before I ever touched a lightsaber, and I used them to train Rey.”

He remembered what Rey told him, but he was curious what Vace would say, so he asked "where is she?"

A distant look entered Vace's eyes. "Gone," she said, clearing her throat. "She left to ensure our safety."

He chewed the inside his cheek as he contemplated his next words, unsure what he expected the answer to be. “Why’d you help us?” he said, wrapping his arms around his chest. “You were safe on Jakku. You could’ve just handed us over.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Honour demands you help people in need. I’ve forsaken that for too long.” She stepped into the room, eyeing the vibroblades again. “My job is to protect Rey, and I intend to do that. But things change. It was time to adapt or die, and _apathy_ is the surest way to die.” She fixed him with a searching look, her brows drawn together. “You couldn’t sleep?” she asked gently.

Finn shook his head, and she looked thoughtful. “Do you know the game zond’t?”

“No.”

“It’s a Cathar card game that relies on patience and strategic thinking. When times are difficult, I find it calming to play. I can teach it to you if you’d like?”

A light feeling washed over him, releasing the tension in his stomach and shoulders, and Finn nodded, equal parts curious and grateful for something structured to do.

Vace gestured for him to follow and he walked after her.

* * *

Rey froze when she opened her eyes to see the smooth, dark walls of the Truth Seeker’s interior, and listened to the distant rumble of the engine, the soft hiss of ventilation, felt the subtle motions of hyperspace rippling around them.

It was real.

She looked to her right and noted Finn sleeping on the bottom bunk opposite her while Vace slept on the middle-top bunk. He seemed peaceful enough despite what he’d been through in contrast to Vace, perpetually frowning in her sleep. Her jaw muscles flexed, and a durable mouthguard kept her from grinding her teeth to dust and keeping everyone awake. It used to make a horrible sound.

Her chest tightened the longer she stared at her mama, trying to understand and trying not to think about what she said before Finn arrived.

Quietly slipping out of the room, Rey padded down the hall to Sulia’s study and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. A bittersweet comfort wrapped around her, like an old blanket rescued from a burning house.

No surface was left unused, either built into shelves or storage with only enough open space to walk between it all. All manner of crystals, relics, holocrons, holobooks, and various oddities filled the space, with the focal point of the chamber taking the form of a desk on the far side. Small, detail-work tools filled a shelf immediately above it, some meant for cleaning tablets, others to open locks, and some to repair holocrons.

With a shaking breath, Rey approached the desk and drew her hand across its surface, remembering the times she would sit in Sulia’s lap as she worked on something. Sometimes her mother would give her a brush and let her carefully dislodge some debris, explaining the history and meaning behind the item as she did.

Closing her eyes, Rey focused on the echo of Sulia’s presence in the room, the imprint of decades spent living and working in the space, and tried to reach out for its source. But there was nothing, no matter how hard she concentrated, and her heart sank as it always did because somehow she convinced herself this time might be different.

She exhaled sharply, ignoring the sting in her eyes, and turned to leave. The shine of gold framing caught her eye, and Rey stared at the purple octahedral holocron Sulia left behind. The urge to reach out and touch it raised its hopeless head and Rey pushed it down. Sulia may have left it for her, but to what end Rey never understood because she could never activate it, so she stopped trying years ago.

Much like she stopped coming into this room when all it did was cause her pain.

Sighing, Rey gave it one more moment before walking out of the room and straight into EROX. She stumbled back, surprised heat rushing to her face.

“Good morning, Rey,” EROX said quietly, “are you alright?”

“Yes,” she blurted out, “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

EROX tilted his head. “Do let me know if you require anything. This will be strange for both of you.”

She sighed again, sagging. “I know…and thanks.”

He nodded and left her be, presumably returning to the bridge to resume his watch of the systems, and Rey followed just far enough to reach the refresher where she could get cleaned up for the day.

* * *

Being bedridden was an awful experience for someone like him, constantly on the move, born to soar through atmo and space alike, but Poe appreciated the visits he got from Finn throughout the days, bringing food and company. Not that he didn’t love BB-8, but it was nice talking to someone new, and Finn was definitely new and intriguing. A Stormtrooper who didn’t believe, and a Force-sensitive one at that.

The girl, Rey, came by now and then to check on him and ask about the Coalition. She seemed far more interested than her 'mama' did, eyes sparkling at tales of heroism and fighting for a better tomorrow.

It was the quiet moments he dreaded the most, left alone to think about what happened to Taunul, Edren, the villagers, and what came after. He lay awake with his arms around his head, trying to forget the burning sensation of Ruin brute-forcing into his thoughts. It made his stomach knot, and he struggled to keep anything down the first couple of meals but finally managed it on the third, brushing the difficulty off with good humour and a winning smile that Finn seemed to find infectious.

He was alive, with new allies, and on his way somewhere safe—the little things could tide him over until he could relax and talk to someone.

The mission was still on.

* * *

“Dropping out of hyperspace in one minute.”

The announcement caused Finn to look up from the zond’t cards he was practising with and quickly shuffle them into a deck he left in the middle of the dining table. He jogged out of the galley and up to the bridge where Rey already sat in the co-pilot seat with Vace.

A subtle bump in their momentum and the rippling veil of hyperspace slipped away, revealing a vibrantly blue and green marble of a planet, Takodana. Descending through the atmosphere brought the lush vistas of the equatorial band into close focus, a blanket of tropical flora spreading out below them, broken up by labyrinthine waterways that cut through the landscape and left sheer valleys, countless waterfalls and dozens of lakes behind.

One lake dwarfed them all, however, sitting in a bowl between two staggering mountain ranges, and at one end of the lake perched a stone castle on a diamond-shaped foundation, three of the four points topped by triangular spires with the tallest one overlooking the lake. Its trapezoidal architecture gave it an impressive and majestic profile that stood out on the rocky shore. A town spread out around it, built from the same material but haphazard in design and placement—a large clearing outside of town denoted a spaceport where at least a dozen ships were parked on the packed earth. Vace brought them down gently in an empty lot away from the other ships. “Welcome to Ven-sha.”

With Poe on crutches, they left EROX and BB-8 on the ship and Vace confidently led them into town. The population was an eclectic mix of perfectly honest workers as far as Finn could tell, and people who were definitely criminals if the illegal goods they were selling out in the open were any indication. But no one gave them any mind, no one stared, or followed, or looked suspicious of them in any way, and Finn smiled a little realising that they might be safe after all, at least for now.

Vace walked them right up to the castle and through the courtyard where dozens of different flags and banners hung on cable rows overhead. Finn recognised some belonging to religions, pirates, gangs, cultural groups, but most he couldn’t identify.

All manner of people filtered in and out around them, some chatting and laughing, others stumbling or catching themselves against the wall, and it was only until they stepped through the huge double-doors that Finn realised they were entering a cantina. The smell of food, alcohol and various smoked substances hit right after the swell of noise, people talking or calling across the room, laughter, yelling, friendly or otherwise, and the deep thrum of Zabrak rock music under all of it.

Navigating easily around benches, tables, and bar tops, Vace approached a tall humanoid wearing dark blue armour, simple in design and ambiguous, thin plates meant to support the body that didn’t get in the way of movement. Colourful strings of beads wrapped around the wrists and neck of the figure, while a heavy leather belt held a variety of tools, electronics, a knife, and a compact blaster pistol.

“Maz!” Vace called over the noise.

The figure turned around, revealing the only exposed part of their body and Finn nearly stepped back as the realisation hit him—Vace’s friend was a Gen’dai. Grey-purple skin without a trace of hair, razor-sharp teeth, intense black eyes, and fang-tipped facial wings folded against the jawline. No wonder she wore armour in her own establishment, Gen’dai had no distinct shape besides their head as a boneless mass of nerves and muscle, they needed armour or similarly rigid apparel to take form. Finn just never expected to actually _meet_ one.

“Vace!” exclaimed Maz, surprise dominating her face. She quickly looked them all over and fixed on Rey, grinning widely. “Well, you’ve certainly grown since we last saw each other.”

“I’m sorry,” said Rey, rubbing her arm and looking sheepish. “I don’t remember you very well.”

Maz nodded, hands on her hips. “That’s alright, the last time you were here wasn’t a happy one, but I’m glad to see you both alive and well. Who are your friends?”

Vace gestured to Finn and Poe, introducing them in turn before she lowered her voice. “We need to talk.”

Maz scanned the room for a moment until she gave a satisfied nod, “of course, this way.” She turned and led them through the back door into a private wing where the noise of the cantina quickly faded. They walked down a stone corridor decorated with paintings from all kinds of styles and cultures until they reached a set of metal doors. Beyond them was a comparatively cosy study that also served as her office by the looks of it.

Closing the doors behind them, Maz walked around the group to her desk and leaned on it, staring at Vace. “You wouldn’t be here if everything was fine. What happened?”

“The First Order came to Jakku and discovered us. We were not followed, but we need help.”

“Blast it. Well, I still owe you and Sulia many favours, so whatever you need you’ll have.”

“Thank you.”

Maz’s attention shifted to him, and Finn tensed. “I assume you’ll have your hands busy with this one?”

“What?” Finn sputtered, looking at Vace.

She sighed. “I had not brought it up to him yet,” she said, turning to face him. “The likelihood of running into Sith is only going to climb so you will need training in the Force. If you’ll have me, I can teach you.”

Part of him recoiled at the idea so soon after Ruin’s threat, but Finn pushed it away, reminding himself where he was, that Vace wasn’t Sith and that she was _offering_ , not demanding. He took a breath and just nodded in agreement.

Vace canted her head in acceptance and looked back at Maz, who smiled thinly. “Wonderful,” she said, her expression turning sober. “I’d like to speak with Vace alone if you don’t mind. I’ll arrange everything you need after.”

Finn followed Rey and Poe out of the room, too lost in thought to hear anything they said until Poe nudged him, causing him to clear his throat. “Hey, Rey, what is her training like?”

“Oh, it’s nothing like the Sith. She focuses on balance and discipline, and plays to your strengths,” said Rey with a comforting smile. “Your military training should help a lot.”

The answer brought a light feeling to his chest, and he smiled back. “Yeah, I hope so.”

* * *

“I never thought you’d return after last time. What a mess that was.”

Vace hummed in agreement, contemplating the dark green bourbon in her glass, and trying _not_ to recall that time. Most of it was a blur of pain, physical and emotional. A happy life upended because of one man. Sulia had never looked so terrified. Vace exhaled sharply and drained some of her drink.

Maz settled behind her desk, hands in a steeple. “Do you still think that was the best solution?”

“I don’t know,” Vace sighed, refusing to meet Maz’s searching eyes. She cursed internally, resisting the urge to crush the glass in her hand as the years of isolation and cowardice bore down on her. “We thought it would protect her, we… _I_ hoped it would. All I've done is hinder her.”

“You know her senses will only sharpen now that she’s off that dismal rock. And the sharper they grow, the more she’ll realise something is wrong.”

“I know.”

“You should tell her before then.”

“I _know_.”

Maz shook her head, and Vace downed the rest of her glass. “You realise this puts you on a collision course? The last time you faced him, you ended up in pieces.”

Vace finally met her gaze, ears back. “I can handle the pretentious _snakes_ under his control, but I don’t intend to face the man himself, and certainly not what lurks behind him.” The memory of that smoking black blade carving through her flesh rushed back to her and Vace shuddered. “I won’t repeat that mistake.”

“See that you don’t. I’ve missed the lot of you.”

* * *

As the Finalizer closed in on its destination, Ruin entered a private training room reserved for the Sith contingent, and more specifically his Knights. The open space was lined with targets, dummies, and sparring mats. The Knights ceased practice in his presence and immediately stood to attention in their training gear, simple, practical garments that protected only their modesty.

He looked at each of them in turn, considering the weeks ahead, what they needed to accomplish, what obstacles they would face in the greater galaxy.

Without his direct command, the Knights of Ruin were led by a scarred Chiss woman called Zor’el, who came to them a decade ago of her own accord. He recalled with bewildered scorn that her strong connection to the Force was relegated to _navigational_ duties in the Ascendancy, and how she demanded training as if it were owed her. Snoke granted training so gruelling only Ruin’s experience trumped it, but what emerged was a pure Sith, tempered by pain and rage. Her imperious postured and chiselled features commanded an air of respect, and her mastery of the Force coupled with her tactical organisation made her an ideal leader of whom he trusted completely in his absence.

Next to her stood Aplek, a pale and wiry Mirialan man with a closely shorn head. He scarcely spoke and possessed incredible aptitude in using the Force to deceive and manipulate. Once a victim of Hutt slave trade, Aplek murdered his masters in a fit of rage and spent many weeks on the run before being picked up by the Inquisitors and sent to Ilum.

Towering beside him was Karrdo, a large female Wookie and a potent rarity as individuals with her aptitude often found themselves enthralled by the Jedi, no such luck with their near extinction. Long scars cut stark pale lines through her dark fur, which she closely cropped, revealing a long-limbed, muscular body that could easily tear any human into pieces, with claws that had done just that on many occasion. Her people cast her out as a disgraced exile, a ‘mad claw,’ but all that accomplished was bringing her to the Sith where her violent nature was appreciated.

Vicrul took his place in the row, a dark-skinned, slender human man with braided hair, a cropped beard, and a proud posture. One of the first students taught at the academy, Vicrul was often cited as an example of what the academy could make of those gifted in the Force. His early success and ongoing achievements played no small part in the willingness of new acolytes, though some still needlessly feared the prospect of Ilum.

Lastly, there was Ushar, a tall human woman with warm brown skin and luminous red eyes like the rest of them. On her shoulders lay the burden of legacy, to which Ruin could relate to a point. Ushar was the latest in the Siovian bloodline, which could be traced all the way back to the era of the Old Republic when Jedi and Sith clashed in great numbers, and Korriban was under their control.

Perhaps one day, the Sith would control it again.

“What is your bidding, my Lord?” Zor’el inquired, holding her head high.

Ruin paced along their line, hands behind his back. “You’re to deploy with the Savage Dawn contingent and ensure the operation proceeds without delay.”

“Will you be with us?” asked Vicrul.

Ruin shook his head. “My orders are to expedite Lord Ralveg’s work on Naboo. We believe the Coalition is preparing a more spirited plan of action now that they have more than one adept at their disposal.”

Zor’el spoke again. “The Jakku fugitives have made contact?”

“We don’t know for certain. If they are spotted they will be apprehended, and you should consider it a secondary objective should you run into them, but your goal is Savage Dawn.”

“As you command, my Lord.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know :3


	6. Exchange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, we're going to have conversations.

A heavy mist rolled across Lake Nymeve most mornings, enveloping everything in the valley and necessitating fog lights until it cleared. It made Rey feel hidden and secretive, sequestered under the lip of a moss-coated overhang, water slowly dripping around her, waves lapping at the shore, a perfect meditation spot only half an hour’s walk from Ven-sha.

Takodana was far more alive in the Force than Jakku, which _should_ have made meditation much easier. Yet, Rey found the process unchanged despite her repeated attempts to familiarise herself with it over the last couple of days. Reaching that point of clarity still felt like a chore, dragging a deadweight with only her arms when it should have been so much smoother a process. She assumed she was being impatient, doing _something_ wrong, so she breathed through her frustrations and tried again, as many times as it took.

Facing the lake Rey focused outward, eyes shut. Slowly, she began to feel the life around her, from the smallest creatures to the mightiest trees blanketing the landscape, all of it connected, all of it—

Images assaulted her mind like a flash of lightning, her mother tearful and looming, hands aglow with power, an apology in her lips, and a hard, icy pain pierced Rey's skull like a crown of thorns. Sulia bled away and the rain fell hard around her, an ancient, abandoned temple rising from the darkened swamp, lightsabers glowing in the distance, Vace and Sulia frozen and illuminated in a flash of lightning. Vace's arm was off, still holding her weapon, the gap between her limb and her body filled by a black blade in the hands of a ghoulish looking man.

His obsidian eyes flicked towards her and suffocation hit.

Shadows swallowed everything, leaving only a dark, masked warrior with an igneous vented lightsaber, bristling with pain and fear, and a towering robed figure behind him wielding a blade of smoking blackness, a pallid and mangled visage glaring from the shadows. And behind them, a writhing maelstrom of darkness, pinpricks of light burning into eternity, the sheer malevolence of it curdling her insides, so potently repugnant and otherworldly that Rey physically jerked back, snapping out of her meditation.

It took a moment to calm her breathing. She had never had a vision before, and she wondered if it was a premonition, a _warning_. Rey knew what the Force and its intricacies felt like. But what she felt around those figures wasn’t normal. It was something else, something bizarre and wrong _._ She couldn’t think of any other word for it; it felt _wrong_. And then there was her mother, looming over her as to heal her, but she didn't remember being hurt that night at the temple. She didn't remember much at all.

Rey rubbed her brow.

The menacing strangers were simple to decipher from both personal experience and official news reports across the holonet, Darth Ruin and Emperor Snoke Kaullost. For what purpose was harder to answer, she didn't see the future, only what she knew already, that these men were dangerous, and that Snoke was the reason they went into hiding.

A small pang of guilt ran through her for lying to Finn. She felt bad for him, empathised with his situation, but fear kept her from telling him the truth. If he had been a different man, he could have salvaged his position in the First Order by revealing their existence. Not that it mattered in the end. The First Order almost certainly knew they were still alive, which meant _Snoke_ knew they were alive.

And she still couldn't feel Sulia's presence anywhere. If Sulia had died, she should have felt something, and surely Sulia would have reached out to her through the Force, manifested herself for one last message, a release from their limbo on Jakku. But that never happened and the gaping emptiness of that silence felt like a vice around Rey's heart.

Frowning deeply, she got to her feet and brushed herself down. She would talk to Vace about it later if she could figure out what to even say about it. For now, she decided to jog back to Ven-sha instead of walk, hoping exercise would help clear her head.

* * *

“Draw upon the Force with each breath and try again.”

Finn nodded and focused on his breathing first, tamping down the embers of frustration as he stared at the slab of solid stone Vace tasked him with lifting. She moved it easily despite it coming up to her knees, but he had never tried to do that before, all he had ever done was suppress everything to do with his Force-sensitivity. To _utilise_ it was a new and frustrating experience as his instinct to hide fought with his desire to move the stone.

The risk of it going _flying_ was why she brought him to an overlook outside Ven-sha, less distraction, less chance of him accidentally hurting someone.

Once he felt in control of his frustrations, Finn reached out a hand and concentrated on the rock, feeling its weight, its position in the Force, and adjusting it. He slowly twisted his hand to face the sky, and the rock lifted with it. He smiled and held his focus until it was at least a foot off the ground, floating like a feather, and it occurred to him that it wasn’t difficult.

The difficulty wasn’t in the doing but in overcoming his fears.

He gently set the rock down and looked at Vace, who stood watching him with her arms crossed. She nodded approvingly. “Well done, take a break,” she said, and turned away to look out over the lake and Ven-sha in the distance.

Grateful, Finn walked to the nearest stream of many. A web of waterways snaked around the overlook and spilt over the edge in a cascade of thin falls that resembled a row of fangs. He knelt and washed the sweat from his face, rubbing fresh, cold water over his head and the back of his neck to cool down.

Tiny fish darted through the water and Finn took a moment to look around him, to take in his lush surroundings and let himself _feel_ without worry. He exhaled a deep breath and stepped away from the stream to join Vace at the edge of the overlook. The valley spread out before them in a brilliant viridian vista uncovered by the morning fog.

“Can I ask you something about the Force?” he ventured, keeping his eyes on the lake.

“Always, though I may not have the answer.”

“What does the light and dark side mean to you?”

Vace snorted, “nothing.”

He looked at her sharply, brows raised. “What?”

“Ashla, bogan, and bendu, what you called light and dark, and what lies between. I was taught to see the Force as fluid, a gradient. When there is only a rigid Light Side and Dark Side, there will always be conflict.”

“You mean the Jedi and Sith?”

“Jedi and Sith are extremes that can never co-exist peacefully, they will always seek to wipe each other out, nothing but arrogance and dogma, and the galaxy always suffers for it eventually.”

Finn took a moment to contemplate that, thinking back to the times Jedi were brought up in the First Order. “They taught us that the Jedi were complacent elites who propped up a corrupt regime.”

Vace winced, canting her head. “Imperial propaganda, but it carries a grain of truth. The Republic had many problems, and because of their close relationship, the Jedi were complicit to an extent. By the time of the purge, they often served the Republic apparatus first and foremost, and the Republic could easily tar them with whatever brush it wished. Which it did, as the Empire, so it took a lot of digging on our part to uncover even moderate views on the Jedi at the time. I do not think the Jedi _deserved_ what was done to them, they had as many flaws as any group. From what I read most of them seemed to be good people trying to make things right, there are many surviving records of Jedi heroism from all corners of the galaxy. That only increased with Skywalker's efforts. What happened to them was as much a tragedy then as it is now. I would have liked to see them grow beyond it, they _were_ on their way to it.”

“If not for Ruin…”

“Indeed.”

Finn chewed the inside of his cheek. “What about the Sith?”

A distant look entered Vace’s eyes, and her ears folded back. “What is there to say? The word ‘Sith’ might as well be a synonym for ‘monster,’ their history is classified or destroyed, it is illegal to speak or write their language, and their homeworld is off-limits. The Jedi were so _comfortable_ with the notion that the Sith were extinct, and all the galaxy knows is a legacy of unspeakable evil. The First Order is only reinforcing that belief.”

She spoke sternly, but Finn couldn’t help but catch a sense of melancholy in her words. No, not her words, her presence, for all her stoicism the topic brought her emotions to the surface just enough for Finn to sense them. “You’re unhappy about that,” he murmured, watching her posture stiffen. The melancholy vanished, and she turned away from the vista. “It is a grim subject. We’re done for today,” she muttered, “let us return.”

Finn hurried to keep up with her.

* * *

There was nothing quite as good for the body as a nice dip in a bacta tank. Poe gave his leg a final check, running his hand over his calf where torn muscle used to be. Not even a scar remained.

“ _< <All better?>>_” BB-8 chirped at him. The little droid sported the new paint job well, dark blue matte with white trim.

“Yeah, all better,” he said, smiling. He put his boot back on and walked out of the clinic, making sure his scarf was in place and to pull up the hood of his new coat before he made it outside. BB-8 followed along and kept his sensors on a swivel. “ _< <When are we leaving?>>_”

He kept his voice down, “should be soon. I know you’re anxious to get back, buddy, I am too.” He walked through Ven-sha’s central marketplace, the one location with a sense of organisation as all the stores and stalls lined a long boulevard running from the landing pads to Kanata Castle. Trees took up the central median, wrapped with lights for nightfall, and occasionally broken up by junctions. He turned down one of them onto a smaller street and entered the first building on his right, _‘The Sizzling Bantha,’_ a grill run by a family of Volpai.

Open archways and lattice screens took up the front half of the building, letting in the light and sounds of outside but shielding patrons when the weather got bad. A raised square kitchen sat in the middle of the room with a counter and chairs giving people a beautiful view of the open flame grills and the four-armed chefs cooking their food. The rich smell of it reminded him how hungry he was with a gnawing insistence, and he wound his way to Finn, Vace, and Rey sitting at a corner table at the back of the restaurant.

Vace sat with her back to the corner so she could see the entire room.

“Hey, you look good,” said Finn, smiling and pulling out the only chair left—next to him. Poe smirked and settled down, “thanks, you too.” He knew full well that Finn was talking about his lack of crutches, but the response was too easy.

Finn blinked and quickly took an interest in draining his glass of water, leaving Poe to turn his attention to Vace, but before he could open his mouth again, Vace handed him the menu.

“We waited,” she said. Poe saluted her with the menu, and after a quick browse, their orders were taken by one of the younger Volpai.

Poe poured himself some water from a metal pitcher. “So, how much longer are we staying here?”

Vace leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, looking thoughtful. “We should be ready to leave by tomorrow.”

He nodded and swallowed his impatience. It could’ve been worse.

They talked until the food arrived, mostly about Finn’s training since he was genuinely curious about what it was like. It was nice to see Finn brighten up and relax, proud of his progress and the ease at which things came to him, especially after the raw fear he expressed at being sent to Ilum.

Vace confirmed what Poe already suspected. “He’s strong in the Force. It’s a small miracle he remained hidden for so long.”

Poe waited to swallow a mouthful of crispy, spiced meat before asking, “what about you? How strong are you?”

“Strong enough to make a difference, but Sulia was far more powerful and knowledgeable than I will ever be.”

“That’s not true,” said Rey, frowning. “You were equals.”

Vace’s ears perked as if alarmed and she smiled stiffly. “Equals in physical combat.”

Poe looked at Rey, “and you?”

Rey hunched her shoulders, looking uncomfortable. “I’m nothing special, I can use it when I need it but I’m not strong.”

Once the meal was finished, Vace paid for it and left with Rey for some important errand, leaving Poe and Finn at the table to figure out how to spend the remaining daylight. “Hey, you want to get out of here and grab a drink?”

Finn looked momentarily surprised by the offer but rose from his chair with a smile. “Sure.”

* * *

Rey followed Vace through the castle, anticipation making her light-headed. They came to Maz’s office to find her sitting behind her desk, reviewing something on her datapad, and she looked up with a questioning expression.

“Something wrong?” she asked, putting it down.

“No,” said Vace. “I’d like to see your collection for Rey’s lightsaber.”

The air left her lungs. Rey grinned, tears welling in her eyes. Maz smiled and opened a desk drawer, fishing out a key.

Vace turned and put a hand on her shoulder, reminding Rey to breathe. “I’ll bring Finn by in the morning so he can construct his when he is ready, but you are ready now.” Vace smiled part pride, part regret. “You have been ready for a long time.”

Maz led them from her office and down the hall, passed the doors the cantina, and descended a spiral stairwell that ended in a heavy set of high-tech double-doors. She inserted the key into a panel with a scanner and took off her right gauntlet, exposing a shapeless limb of free-moving muscle cords no longer formed into a five-fingered hand. She pressed her coiled tendrils against the scanner, Rey assumed in some impossible to replicate pattern, and the panel beeped after a few seconds.

While Maz put her gauntlet back on the doors hissed open, and she motioned for them to step inside with a jerk of her head. “Go on, I haven’t moved much.”

Vace walked in, and Rey followed, captivated by the plethora of valuables Maz stored inside. The large room was a treasure trove of cultural artefacts, trophies, relics, and curiosities, mounted to the walls, held in force-field displays, lining shelves, and broken up by some impressive taxidermy of dangerous and rare creatures. A krayt dragon skull hung from the vaulted ceiling, a lustrous green speckled pearl the size of Rey’s head suspended in its jaws.

Something strange tickled her senses, it _felt_ like hundreds of tiny voices trying to catch her attention, indistinct and meaningless, but it distracted her enough that she stumbled into Vace’s back.

“Sorry,” she said hurriedly, stepping around Vace to see what stopped her. A large, solid wood chest sat atop a long stone block, the vibrant colour and distinctive whorls of the wood reminding Rey of a wroshyr wood carving in Sulia’s study. She moved closer and stopped, looking at Vace for approval and Vace nodded, prompting her to open the chest.

Dozens, no, _hundreds_ of gems and stones sat within it, and years of study rushed to the forefront of her thoughts as Rey began to recognise some of the lightsaber crystals by name. Her stomach flipped. She felt light-headed again, but she pushed it down and resisted the urge to run her hands over them. It was the first time she’d seen any outside the occasional glimpse of the crystals in Vace’s lightsaber whenever she performed maintenance on it.

Vace spoke quietly, “clear your mind and seek out the ones that call to you the loudest. You will need four of them, two pairs to use as primaries and for focusing. I will collect the mechanical parts.”

With a deep breath, Rey closed her eyes and held her hands over the collection. Carefully reaching out with the Force, she tuned in to each little tug to her senses, picking through the noise for the most insistent, the sharpest pull. She slowly dipped her left hand into the chest, pushing away the physical sensation of cold minerals against her skin and focusing entirely on the _pull_. Her fingers closed around two small oval crystals, lighting her up with a feeling of _rightness_ , and she pulled them up without opening her eyes.

She did the same with her right hand, ignoring the physical and concentrating solely on what she could feel through the Force. Lightning flashed through her mind, and her nape hairs stood up, the smell of ozone touching her nose—she closed her hand around a pair of long, angular crystals and pulled them free.

Exhaling, Rey opened her eyes and looked at her prizes. She recognised the angular stones in her right hand as firkrann, pale, golden-white and brimming with energy potential. She drove a spark into them from her fingertips, and the crystals absorbed it, growing slightly heavier in her palm. Rey smiled and looked at the ovals in her left hand, a pair of small, smooth and silvery gems that looked like frozen mercury. Those she couldn’t identify.

Rey turned around to see Vace waiting patiently with a pouch containing the hilt components. She looked proud but sad at the same time, dropping a weight on Rey’s heart as Sulia’s absence ripped open a fresh wound. Rey quickly cleared her throat and approached, holding out her hands for Vace to inspect the crystals. She looked them over, only for her eyes grow wet, and she blinked quickly, looking away with her ears folded. Rey frowned, unused to seeing Vace with tears in her eyes. “What is it?”

Vace cleared her throat and met Rey’s stare with a forced smile. “The durindfire crystals,” she said thickly, motioning the smaller, silver gems. “Your mother used those.”

The words lodged a hard tangle in Rey’s throat. She threw her arms around Vace in a tight hug and Vace froze. For a moment Rey feared indifference, years of distance and reservation telling her to pull away only for Vace's arms to wrap around her in a fierce embrace. Vace's shoulders shook, tears spilling freely, and they stood for a while, just holding each other until their eyes dried.

Rey pulled back first, swallowing against the lump in her throat. “I miss her, mama,” she said hoarsely, “I miss her so much it hurts and I wish we knew where she went and if she’s okay and—if—if she still loves us.”

With red-rimmed eyes, Vace put her hands on Rey’s shoulders. “She does, she loves us more than anything, that’s why she left, to protect us, to protect _you_. We’ll find her, even if we have to tear apart the galaxy, I _promise_ , Rey, we will _find_ her.”

Nodding slowly, Rey took a moment to search for the right words. “I'm sorry for what I said when I brought BB-8 to our home. I let my anger talk for me and I was cruel."

Vace shook her head and pulled Rey back into the hug, pressing a gentle kiss to her brow. "It is alright," Vace whispered, "I left you isolated because it was too painful to talk about. I should have been stronger for you, I'm sorry."

Rey squeezed fresh tears from her eyes and took a slow, deep breath to try and approach composure. "I had a vision,” she murmured, “while I was meditating this morning.”

Her serious tone caused Vace to straighten, ears folding back. “What did you see?”

“Emperor Kaullost and Darth Ruin, lightsabres drawn, and this terrible, swallowing darkness behind them—I don’t know what it was, but it felt wrong as if it was something I wasn’t meant to see.”

“Anything else?”

“I... I saw mother. The night he found us.”

Vace's expression dropped and she looked away, shoulders curving in. "What did you see?" she repeated, subdued.

Frowning, Rey rubbed her brow as she tried to focus on the memory, but it felt distant, hazy. "I think she was healing me, but I don't remember being hurt."

Vace appeared stricken, opening her mouth to say something, yet she hesitated, a pained, conflicted look in her eyes that made Rey uneasy, so she cleared her throat and smiled as best she could. "It's alright, we don't have to talk about it," she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. "I just don't remember what happened very well."

With a deep breath, Vace closed her eyes and took a moment to collect herself. “For the Force to give you a premonition of them means nothing good," she murmured, opening her eyes. She straightened, and squared her shoulders, regarding the chest of crystals. "It’s more than a matter of readiness to do this now, it’s critical.” She gestured for Rey to follow, “come.”

They passed through the doors and thanked Maz for her generosity, to which she smiled. “My pleasure, come and find me again when you want to collect the boy’s crystals.”

They took water, ration bars, and a lamp—it could take an hour, or it could take all night. Her meditative space beneath the mossy overhang was a perfect place in which to forge her new weapon, and the walk helped clear her mind for what was to come.

Rey sat comfortably with Vace in front of her, and set her crystals on the ground between them, the warm yellow glow of the lamp casting strange shadows on the curved belly of the overhang. Once the stones were arranged to her liking, she looked to Vace with a smile.

Vace nodded approvingly and began taking out the mechanical components. “Close your eyes and concentrate, focus all that you are on your crystals until they ring in the Force with your essence.” She finished setting them down, all the pieces necessary to make a split hilt like hers, like Sulia’s. “If you waver, you may draw on my strength.”

Nodding, Rey did as instructed, tamping down the distracting fizz of excitement in her belly until she felt focused enough to reach out through the Force, and as she did Vace began to recite their code. “From blood there is honour, from honour there is wisdom, from wisdom there unity, from unity there is strength, in our strength there is a future, balanced and unbroken.” She repeated the words quietly, over and over again until they felt etched into Rey’s bones, and Rey took all that she was, her fears and hopes, joy and sadness, anger and patience, she filtered all of it into the crystals, made them a part of her, an _extension_ of her.

The sounds of water dripping, the lakeshore lapping, tree boughs creaking, insects and birds growing loud with the coming night, it all became muffled, yet she never lost touch with it. She drew the flow of Takodana’s abundant life through her and into her connection with the crystals.

It felt like something clicked into place inside her, and with Vace’s passive guidance, Rey began moving the hilt components through the Force. She lifted the crystals into their proper alignment, the primary durindfire and the focusing firkrann, and slowly slotted everything into place around them, taking the utmost care to do it correctly. She tightened every seal, checked every connector until she instinctively knew to reach out physically and open her eyes.

She grasped the plain silver hilt, utilitarian in design but highly customisable when she felt confident enough to tinker. It was heavy in her hand, comfortingly so, real and solid—her very own lightsaber, finally.

Vace smiled proudly at her and stood, holding out a hand, which Rey took to stand up. Her body ached, but Rey held her head high, too enamoured by the accomplishment to complain.

She grinned, stepped back, and ignited both ends. Silver blades emerged with a crackling hiss and hummed with energy-it felt like an extra limb. After taking in the magnificent sight, Rey sent her mama a challenging grin. “Isn’t it tradition to spar after?”

The warm chuckle surprised Rey, and Vace Force pulled her lightsabre from its leather case at the small of her back, igniting a single orange blade. “Yes,” she said, smiling as she adopted a defensive stance, “it is.”

* * *

Finn wasn’t sure what to expect when Poe asked him out for a drink. Not that Poe asked him _out_ , Finn was reasonably sure of that, mostly, sort of—it wasn’t something he should concern himself with at a time like this. He didn’t know what way his life was headed now, all he knew was that he enjoyed Vace’s training and that he was moving _away_ from the First Order, and the Sith.

Nonetheless, he did enjoy Poe’s company; the man was very easy to talk to, especially in the familiar and relaxed setting of a bar. The subdued lighting and music gave the L-shaped room an almost cosy feeling as dozens of people drank and chatted around them, filling the space with a wide variety of languages. He tried not to think about the times he spent on shore leave drinking with his squad mates and tried even harder not to think about what Nines and Zeroes were doing.

“So, I was thinking,” said Poe, prompting Finn to snap out of his reverie. Poe was leaning against the bar, a casual smile on his face. “Once we get to home base, you’ve proven yourself pretty amazing under pressure and adaptable. How’d you feel about joining the Coalition?”

“I don’t know how to feel,” Finn admitted, staring at his bottle of local ale. “I wish it was like throwing a switch, but there are a lot of people like me back there. Folk rescued from slavery and oppression, or pulled out of poverty, kids taken in after the Frontier took their parents, people who don’t have the faith but keep going because it’s their home, and people who wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for the First Order. They’re not all bad people; I don’t want to wipe them out.”

“What about the Sith?”

“I wouldn’t mind if they were gone.”

Poe nodded in thought for a moment. “You mentioned faith, right? We’ve heard little bits and pieces about it, but what is it?”

Exhaustion washed over him, and Finn sighed, draining some of his drink. “Okay, well. We’re taught there’s a Dark Mother, she’s supposed to be a god of ‘the void between stars,’ and is matron to all. Emperor Palpatine was chosen by Her to rescue everyone who lived in the Frontier and he sent Admiral Laurien Karst to lay the groundwork for the First Order over sixty years ago.”

“Wait, _sixty?_ He was building this up while he already had his Empire in the rest of the galaxy?”

“As far as we’re told. When Admiral Karst was assassinated, he sent Snoke Kaullost to save the Frontier from ‘Rebel insurrection.’ Kaullost uplifted everyone who would follow and dragged the unruly into line to make it safer for us. When Palpatine was killed a year later he was seen as a martyr, and the very name of Vader became anathema for betraying him. We were cut off, so the ‘saviour’ mantle fell completely to Kaullost.”

“Kind of hard to picture him as a saviour.”

Finn laughed weakly. “Yeah, I guess it would from your side.”

Poe winced and motioned with his drink. “Sorry, it’s just—why does anyone believe that? What has he done to deserve it?”

“Look at this way, we’ve been told all our lives that the Republic _wanted_ us cut off and abandoned, that we were thought of as savages who weren’t worth the effort. The Frontier is hard to navigate at the best of times, it fights against you to keep people isolated, and its _full_ of danger. Admiral Karst, Emperor Kaullost, Palpatine before them changed all that, made it easier to live and work, and fight for each other. Do you have any idea what kind of dangers are in the Frontier?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Okay, the Ssi-ruu Legion, big reptilian zealots that rip the life right out of you to power their technology and they hate _everyone_ who isn’t them. The Vagaari, violent, predatory slavers—we got a lot of our people by freeing their slaves, even my mentor. Starweirds, skeletal hyperspace predators that can attack you in transit. Oh, and the mnggal-mnggal, it’s like a living, sentient contagion, grey sludge that eats you from the inside out. Every few years we get reports of an outbreak on a new world and if we don’t stamp it out as hard as we can right at the start that world is as good as lost.”

Poe eyed him, “you’ve seen all that yourself?”

“I never pissed anyone off enough to get put on outbreak duty. But I’ve fought the Vagaari, and I've only seen the _aftermath_ of a Starweird attack. I remember when I was about twelve we’d been fighting the Ssi-ruu for three years. There was a huge celebration when we pushed them back and forced them to surrender, and a lot of their most down-trodden caste joined us because of it. I mean, I grew up on horror stories from all over the Frontier, and the First Order put a stop to it, made it safer for everyone who served, so we could fight back and protect ourselves if we stuck together.”

“Even with the Sith?”

Finn paused at that, the words catching in his throat. Despite his fear of Ruin, and whatever happened on Ilum, the arrival of a Sith often changed the course of a battle for the better, and there were many times Sith gave their lives for the cause. Most of them weren’t as bad as Ruin. Some were almost normal feeling.

Frustration pushed him to rub at his face, and he cursed under his breath. If it weren’t all so complicated, this would be so much easier. He sighed deeply, dropping his shoulders. “I know I said _I_ don’t want to be Sith, but they’re important to the First Order. They're tied up in the faith, so there’s a reason it’s an _honour_ to go to the academy. I’m not sure we would have gotten so far so quickly without them on the front line.”

“But?”

“Something has to change. Whatever’s happening at the academy has to stop, and I don’t think I could’ve done that from inside.”

“You still think the Republic went out of its way to keep you on the other side of the barrier?”

Finn shook his head, “I don’t know anymore. I feel like I don't know _anything_.” He finished the remainder of his ale and set it down on the bar. A pensive look dominated Poe’s face, and Finn raised a brow, prompting him to ask, “were you the trooper with the bloody helmet? The one who didn’t fire.”

He nearly flinched, looking away. “Yeah.”

“Was that before or after you were getting sent to the academy?”

“Before.”

“So you were having doubts already about who you were killing.”

Finn pursed his lips and frowned. “Maybe,” he murmured, meeting Poe’s stare again. “I was rattled by a death in my squad. My mentor wasn’t one for the faith and calling other people ‘heretics’ so I guess she passed that on to me. I got so good at hiding my connection to the Force that I shut out everything else too. It was easy to compartmentalise when I didn't let myself _feel_ but... my concentration broke.”

Poe leaned forward. “Do you think your mentor has doubts too?”

His last conversation with Phasma flashed through his mind, and Finn humoured the idea for all of a second. "She was the tall one in the chromium armour.”

Poe grimaced and leaned back, sighing. “Sorry, we can talk about something else if you want, your choice.”

Finn managed a small smile. “Thanks.”

* * *

The New Republic Senate towered above everything in the governmental sector, otherwise designated Sector 1 of the Hosnian ecumenopolis, a wretched product of excess and cruelty as the wealthy built up the left the poor behind, sealing a new generation off from the sky.

So many lessons the New Republic should have learned, to build something new and pure. But the beneficiaries of the old clamoured to return to a time when they could grow comfortable and apathetic to the rest of the galaxy, to their own poor and suffering, to anyone who wasn’t _them_. It was just as Core focused, just as Human-centric—Humans _loved_ to pretend distinction, Corellians, Onderonians, Chandrilans, but the moment it came to other species they were all Human and stood together.

Arrogant parasites.

They spent so much time licking their wounds and building up the New Republic’s image as the pinnacle of fairness and just rule returning to the galaxy—Aplek sneered at the notion. There was no fairness when his colony cried out for help and received none, there was no justice for the deaths of his loved ones or his stolen life, and he doubted any in the Republic even shed a tear when they heard the news of the attack.

He walked anonymously amongst the masses, from the steps of the Senate to the farthest depth he could reach and every level in between. It wasn’t nearly as extensive as Coruscant, the ultimate example of such horror, but it was well on its way.

Gangs became common in the lower-mid levels, stalking the sectors for fresh marks in an environment of desperate need. The deeper he walked the dirtier things became, cast-offs and trash from the upper levels gathering below, and the more the smell of blood and waste clung to the air. Masks became common-place, the stink of sickness and death thick in the most neglected corners.

People _tried_ to live their meagre lives in the depths, scraping by on salvage from above, farming fungus and invertebrates for food, and tapping pipes for water. More than once Aplek watched authorities from the surface run them off and repair the pipes.

It took all his discipline not to attack right then and there and start putting these wretches out of their misery.

No, he had a mission, so he walked and listened to the people, overheard conversations, tapped into communications—it was grim. Grand Admiral Doriender’s plan was working beautifully to stretch the Republic fleet thin, funding various warlords around the Core to disrupt trade routes and devastate patrols. Voices of dissent and criticism for the New Republic's Military Disarmament Act doubled every day. A move made by weak and frightened people, easily exploited by the promise of a future without struggle. As if everyone would drop their grievances and hold hands. Childish and privileged to the last.

The future was for those who _bled_ for it.

Now their meagre 'peacekeeping' forces were at the breaking point from well-organised criminal scum. It was an absolute disgrace and the people were furious, calling for increased militarisation. The politicians spoke of rationing instead, and weathered the outrage over it. In-fighting caused the Senate to lock itself in place with endless debate and indecision.

The gridlock would break eventually, so Aplek sent a message to Zor’el to open the floodgates, before he continued scouting for prime locations to set up the instruments of Savage Dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know :3


	7. The Coalition

“Come on, Finn, you got her right where you want her!”

Poe’s encouragement was appreciated but distracting, Finn did not feel like he was on equal footing with Rey but put that down to nerves. She stood across from him in the shadow of the Truth Seeker, standing ready with her training sword held in a defensive posture, sweating as much as he was but smiling. The smile helped reassure him there was no animosity, just a friendly bit of practice.

Finn took a deep breath and dropped his shoulders, bringing his training sword up in a similar stance. He shifted his weight, breathed in, and lunged, sweeping at Rey’s legs. She blocked him, flicking his blade away, and made an upward swing at his dominant arm. He quickly turned into the swing and blocked it straight on, sending tremors up his arms.

Before she could strike again, he kicked out, connecting with her side. It knocked her off balance for a few precious seconds. Finn launched into a series of rapid strikes. Rey regained her footing much faster than he expected and darted back, putting space between them instead of trying to meet any of his blows.

Rey twirled the sword in her hand and settled into a new stance, half-twisted, holding her blade horizontally above her head and turned to the side, with her free hand swept the opposite direction and held palm-down. He knew there were different ‘forms’ of lightsaber combat, but a lack of familiarity left him unable to recognise which one Rey adopted.

While he wracked his brain, trying to figure it out, she charged him. Finn parried the initial blow aimed at his stomach, dodging the next swing for his shoulder, but it put him on the back foot as Rey pressed hard, attacking with random, frenetic strikes he was either forced to avoid or parry. Their training swords clacked loudly with each meeting, one after another, Finn stuck in retreat. He tried to find an opening and push back, but Rey left him no such luxury, all he could do was avoid being directly hit, and he sank all his focus into that.

Her pace was aggressive and energetic, not something she could maintain for a long time without using the Force, and they agreed not to while practising like this. So he trusted she would keep to that and concentrated on tracking Rey’s weapon, trusting his instincts to help him react in time. As he focused, he began to parry more often, slowing his retreat by a few steps at a time, and Rey’s smile widened into a grin.

A pleasant feeling of warmth drifted over him, passive understanding amid his focus—happy. Rey was delighted for him, for his progress, in seeing him excel. The realisation emboldened him, and he pushed back with a grin of his own, finally meeting one of her strikes with equal strength. It cancelled out the blow and jarred his arms. Rey hoped back, laughing.

“That was amazing,” she said. She shook out her arms, likely as jarred as his were. “I wasn’t sure if you would stand up to that.”

“What was it?” Finn asked, taking a moment to catch his breath.

Rey twirled her sword again, taking an exaggerated version of the stance she did before. “Juyo, it was the ‘seventh form’ of lightsaber combat developed by the Jedi and Sith. It’s also called the ‘ferocity form.’” She straightened up, grinning. “You can probably see why.”

He laughed a little and nodded, “yeah, I can. But I thought you weren’t…you know?”

She shrugged. “There’s value in almost everything, even if it came from a flawed perspective.”

Poe approached and held out two canteens of water, which they gratefully took. “Pretty impressive stuff,” he said, looking at both of them. He opened his mouth but paused, eyes fixing on something over their shoulders. “Hey, we good to go?” he called.

They both turned to see Vace walking up to the landing spot.

“Indeed,” she said, stopping short of them. “But I need Finn for one last errand if you’ll come with me?”

Finn straightened, equally intrigued and nervous. “Sure, okay.”

Nodding, Vace turned to leave, and Finn quickly handed his practice weapon to a bewildered Poe before hurrying after her. “What are we doing?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder to see Poe and Rey talking.

Vace navigated down the market boulevard towards Kanata Castle, spots of rain warning of an imminent storm. “I have no idea when or if we will return to Takodana. Maz’s collection is the only viable one we have easy access to, so I want you to select your lightsaber crystals now to assemble later when you are ready for it.”

He nearly crashed into someone as the words hit him and he sputtered. “Didn’t Rey _just_ get her lightsaber?”

“If we had the materials she would have built hers years ago, it was well overdue, but Jakku is weak in the Force and weaker still in resources for creating such a weapon. That aside, you may need it the next time we come into contact with the First Order and their Sith.”

“Okay, but how do I pick? I don’t know this stuff.”

“I will show you.”

It was a simple matter to track down Maz on the cantina floor and walk down to her vault, filled with all kinds of treasures Finn had never seen before. He was momentarily distracted by the skull hanging from the ceiling, unfamiliar with the creature it came from. Still, it must have been a ferocious predator judging by the rows of sharp, conical teeth.

Vace brought him to the far end of the vault, where a large wooden chest awaited them, and Finn cocked his head as something tickled the back of his neck. Vace opened it to reveal the cache of lightsaber crystals within, a mix of every colour and shape imaginable, and Finn stared in amazement. “Where’d these come from?”

“Maz has been alive for at least a thousand years. She made a habit of collecting them as their value could climb very high at times. She would sell them to people like us, but my wife and I built up quite a few favours, so you and Rey get to pick freely.”

“Okay. So, how does this work?”

She motioned at the cache. “You hold your hands over the crystals, close your eyes, and reach through the Force to find the ones that resonate with you the most. You will need two pairs, four in total.”

“Just like that?”

“There are many _ritualised_ ways to pick your lightsabre crystals, but for our purposes, yes. You will know when you find the right ones.”

Taking her at her word, Finn stepped up to the chest and exhaled, doing his best to relax and clear his thoughts. Vace nodded and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “take your time, I will collect the parts for your hilt.” She let go and walked out of sight behind him.

It sounded simple enough.

He could do this.

Finn exhaled another deep breath and closed his eyes, holding his hands over the cache just as Vace said. Slowly, he tuned out everything around him, the sounds of Vace moving around the room, the buzzing energy of life and electricity above him in the cantina, and focused all his attention on the crystals. He faltered at the metallic clink of Vace picking up a component and tried again, patiently pushing it out of his perception until there was nothing but the crystals.

He could feel their resonance, as varied in nature as the people who lived in Ven-sha, and he carefully dipped his right hand into the collection. Some were neutral, some positive, and some downright repellent, so sharply clashing with him that he almost withdrew his hand, but he fought the instinct to do so and continued searching. His fingertips brushed something with a soft point and a heavy, comforting feeling wrapped around him. He reached for it, and a pair of rounded stone cubes practically fell into his palm.

Smiling, he slowly pulled his right hand free and searched again with his left, carefully digging through the pile until another brush with a specific set of crystals left him standing straighter than before. He closed his hand around a pair of smooth oblong stones and withdrew them.

Finn opened eyes to look at his choices. In his right sat a couple of small, rounded cubes of purple stone, shiny and opaque. In his left, he held a pair of clear, oblong crystals with bright blue-green colouration and white flecks.

He turned around to see Vace waiting patiently by the door, quietly talking to Maz, and approached them. “Are these alright?”

They stopped talking, and Vace carefully took the crystals from him, inspecting them for a moment. She half-smiled and handed them back to him. “Absolutely,” she said, crossing her arms. “And your choice is telling.”

He arched a brow at her. “What do you mean, what are they?”

Vace motioned to each set as she explained. “The purple ones are Lorrdian gemstone, forged amidst hardship and revolution. It sharpens your precognition, enhancing your ability to deflect blaster fire and intercept an opponent. The blue ones are Hrakertian glass; it forms near kolto seeps along the ocean floor of Manaan. I am less familiar with it, but it reportedly aids your empathic senses, something to do with the kolto and a folkloric ancestor.”

He looked at the crystals again and closed his hands around them.

Revolution.

The word burned in his mind. He nodded firmly, putting the crystals in his jacket, he would store them somewhere safer on the ship. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Canting her head, Vace turned to Maz, and the two shared a fierce hug.

“Come back in one piece this time,” said Maz, her voice growing hard, “and good luck.”

* * *

With the Truth Seeker completely resupplied, cleaned, and fully repaired, they finally left Takodana and settled in for three days of travel to the remote Ileenium system per Poe’s instructions. For the first few hours, Rey busied herself with endurance exercise in the cargo hold, using the Force to keep one of the smaller, empty crates afloat as she held herself in precarious positions. She had the physical endurance, but keeping that blasted little crate aloft turned it into a titanic effort within half and hour. Still, she persisted.

At least until Poe came looking for her.

“Hey, Rey, can I—” he stopped two steps through the door as he saw her, balancing a one-armed handstand with the other arm tucked behind her back, sweat pouring from her brow. The crate clattered to the floor despite her best efforts to keep it in the air.

“Yeah?” she grunted, swinging her legs down and landing on her feet. She pushed her irritation away and rolled the shoulder of her tucked arm to work out the tension. “What is it?”

Poe held up a couple of blasters he grabbed on Takodana. “Well, I was going to personalise these, you know, do some modifications. But your workshop seems to be fitted for left-hand use, so it was kinda awkward. Can you help?”

“I can do basic things but if you want anything advanced you’ll have to walk me through it.”

“I can do that.”

She shrugged and left the cargo hold with him in tow, walking down the central corridor and turning left to the workshop, passed the doors to the boarding hatch, and the engine room. The weapons bench had almost everything one might need to repair or modify their arsenal be it melee or ranged, and she set the pistol down first because it was smaller and, she hoped, quicker to work on. “So,” she said, sliding onto a stool, “what do you want?”

Thankfully the modifications were within her skill level, a slight widening of the pistol barrel and the attachment of a flex-grip Poe purchased. The rifle was second-hand and needed its power coil replaced, plus some machining to attach an extended barrel.

While she worked, Poe sat on the engineering bench next to her, watching. “So, what was it like seeing another planet? Bet it’s exciting to be flying again.”

She smiled, turning the pistol over in her hands to better work on the barrel. “Yeah, almost like everything is back to normal,” she said, and her smile faded, “even if it isn’t.”

Poe’s voice softened. “You really miss your mom, huh?”

She just nodded, focusing on the pistol. Poe continued, “I get it, I still have my dad but I lost my mom when I was eight, accident. She used to take me flying when I was little, had me sit in her lap so she could take control if I did anything stupid, but she was a good teacher. I wish I could say it gets easier, but it doesn’t. I miss her every day.”

Rey blinked the sting from her eyes and looked at him. “I’m sorry.”

Poe shook his head. “You learn to keep their memory close,” he said. He reached down his shirt and pulled out the chain necklace he wore, and the ring hanging on it, a flat band of bright, shining platinum. “This was her wedding ring and this way she’s always with me. It’ll go to someone really special someday.”

Her throat constricted and Rey returned her attention to the pistol. She swallowed hard and murmured, “that’s sweet.” She meant it, she really did, but it was all she could manage. He had the finality of knowing his mother was dead, and that didn’t lessen the pain, but at least he _knew_. If she could just access Sulia’s holocron, maybe she would have something to go on, but that wasn’t possible, and she still had no idea what she had to do to activate it.

He tucked the ring away and rubbed his neck. “Sorry, I’m not helping am I?”

Rey cleared her throat. “No, you’re okay,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’d just like to talk about something else. Like what kind of ships have you flown? I've only been on the Truth Seeker so I don't have much to compare.”

Poe grinned. “You got all day?"

* * *

“ _< <Are you a war droid?>>_”

EROX turned around at the question, looking down at BB-8. The astromech had been observing him since Jakku, surreptitiously scanning and recording everything it could about him—which EROX left uncommented because it would be such a hassle to confront. Whatever the astromech could gather wouldn’t be useful anyway.

“Of a sort,” he said, “my duty is to serve and protect this family. That usually means guarding their place of residence, be it that pit on Jakku or the ship, where they belong. But I am fully equipped to wage war should it be necessary.”

BB-8 rolled a few feet closer. “ _< <I don’t recognise your make. You don’t show up in any manufacturer catalogue. Are you a custom?>>_”

“Yes.”

“ _< <Who built you?>>_”

“That’s classified, little one.”

The astromech rolled a foot back in indignation, and EROX lifted a hand. “I serve my family, and it has chosen to help _your_ family, which means I am your friend right now. Beyond that, I see no reason to enumerate my state of being to you.”

BB-8 chirped with consternation and rolled away.

* * *

Meal quality vastly improved thanks to the resupply, not that Vace was a terrible cook, but now that she had more to work with Finn found himself enjoying mealtime a lot more, and she was set on giving them even more variety down the line. To that end, he entered the cargo hold intent on helping her set up the hydroponic shelves but paused when he saw Poe jogging on the treadmill. Poe grinned as their eyes met and Finn approached, smiling.

“How’s the leg?” he asked, hands in his pockets.

“Good as new,” said Poe, breathing hard but keeping up a good pace, he was sweaty, dark hair slick on his brow, but he seemed in good spirits, his warm brown eyes practically sparkling. “What about you, how are you doing?”

“Good, I guess.”

“You guess.”

Finn chewed the inside of his cheek. “Kind of still waiting to wake up wearing a shock collar,” he said quietly, hunching his shoulders. “But I’m alive and safe, for now. So I’m good, I guess.”

Poe tapped a button. The machine beeped, slowing down under him until he could safely step off, and he grabbed a canteen of water hanging on the mill. After taking a deep swig, he motioned between them with it. “Good way to look at it, for now,” he said, more serious than Finn had seen him so far, “but I’m here to talk if you want. That was a shitty day for both of us.” He passed by, leaving Finn to contemplate the offer and if he would take Poe up on it.

It was still a bit too much to think about right now, so Finn turned back to what he initially came into the cargo hold for.

Two rows of shelves lined the bottom-most area of the hold, deep enough that he could lie down on one without his arms poking out, with a single unit ‘missing’ from the middle of the front row so the back row could be reached. Thin pipes and tubing ran the length of each row, feeding into trays mounted on every level, and Vace was standing in front of a control panel mounted to the front row, switching between it and her datapad.

He walked over, taking care not to step on any of the new tubing, boxes of nutrient blocks, or the seed packets spread around the floor. “Hey, I was wondering if I could help you with the setup?”

“You can,” Vace said distractedly, though her right ear flicked towards him. “Just give me a moment.”

He nodded and turned away, inspecting the seeds. It was all food, standardised seeds one could find at most markets reasonably connected to the hyperlanes. However, some he didn’t recognise and a quick read of the packet information revealed them to be specific to Takodana.

Hyperspace travel enabled the growth and spread of galaxy-spanning civilisations and the mixing of all manner of peoples, it was an amazing and incredibly useful technological breakthrough, but what it _wasn’t_ was instant. The longer the travel was, and the more mouths that needed feeding, the more green decks and hydroponic bays were required. It also meant there was something else to look at besides metal walls and stars, and Finn always found himself slowing his pace whenever he passed through the botany deck of the Finaliser for one reason or another.

Vace turned away from the control panel, datapad tucked into the back of her belt. “Right,” she said, “let’s get started.”

* * *

A routine formed over the next couple of days. Vace always seemed to wake before everyone else, so after a light breakfast, she took Finn and Rey aside for rigorous sparring in the cargo hold. She used Rey to help teach him soresu, as he seemed well suited to the form's patient and defensive nature. After lunch, they focused on Force specific training, manipulating objects, meditation, and expanding one's senses. Vace was determined to prepare Finn should the worst happen and Rey didn’t blame her for thinking it would. They were hurtling towards a confrontation with the First Order, and inevitably the Sith. He needed to be ready, and they would make sure of that.

Poe made himself at home, probably used to living on ships or in temporary lodgings at the very least. He read, exercised, and watched serials on the holo-projector. More often, Rey noticed him watching and reading news reports. There appeared to be uproar in the New Republic over a glut of scandals being released to both the holonet and the press, protests were spreading, talk of secession was flying. It was the last thing the Republic needed, another excuse to do nothing about the First Order.

Ten hours out from the Ileenium system, they sat around the dining table enjoying herbed, buttery vegetables and a hearty meat pie, when Poe sat up straight, elbows on the table and hands linked. Rey eyed him, catching a brief look of hesitation on his face.

“So,” he started, looking at her and Vace, “we’re going to be with the Coalition soon, so I wanted to ask you two how you felt about joining.”

Rey looked at Vace, whose ears were already folded back.

“We made our choice on Jakku,” Vace said, “we cannot hide anymore; all we can do now is fight.”

“Good, because the galaxy needs Jedi, now more than ever with the Sith laying waste to it.”

Rey winced and pointedly stared at her plate, while Vace glowered across the table. “Don’t call us that.”

“Why? You’re not _Sith_.”

“Not being Sith does not automatically make me a _Jedi_.”

Poe shrugged, either not hearing or ignoring the venom in her voice. “It’ll make you a Jedi to everyone else. Jedi fight Sith, that’s what most people who even know about the Jedi understand. Even if its not true, hearing that the Jedi are returning to fight the First Order would bring those people hope.”

The fur along Vace’s neck and shoulders lifted. “We are not _things_ to be used in propaganda,” she growled. “ _Do not_ call us Jedi.”

Finn caught her eye, looking more than a little uncomfortable, and Rey grimaced apologetically.

“What mama means to say,” she said, laying a hand on Vace’s arm, “is that we avoid those labels because of their history. The Sith and the Jedi have fought each other for thousands of years, throwing the galaxy into turmoil every time. We don’t want to perpetuate that cycle, we want to _break_ it. We aren’t Jedi, we never have been, and we never will be."

Vace grunted and stood up from the table. “If the Republic so _desperately_ needed the Jedi it should have protected them,” she snapped, stalking out of the galley.

The door hissed shut, and Rey exhaled slowly, sinking into her chair. “Sorry,” she murmured, dragging her hands down her face.

Poe sheepishly rubbed his neck. “No, I’m sorry for pushing,” he said, “you’re ready and willing to help fight the First Order. That should be enough for me.” He straightened, looking serious. “It _is_ enough for me. I just..." he trailed off, a forlorn look making his eyes distant. He rubbed them, pinching the bridge of his nose for a second. "I just want people to have hope, to feel like they're not watching the end creep towards them with no one to stop it. There _was_ a time when a Jedi turning up meant the day was saved, you know?”

Rey nodded, “I know.” She stood and picked up her plate, chewing her lip. Poe and Finn both looked deflated. She took a breath and mustered enough energy for an encouraging smile. “How about we wash up and go watch something on the holo together? Take our minds off all that, at least for a little while.”

Poe and Finn both brightened at the suggestion and moved to help her. There could be a moment of normalcy before reality came back to them.

* * *

Rattling the New Republic proved remarkably easier than Zor’el expected. The insecurities leftover from the days of Empire made its people fearful and weak, and she suspected that the only ones amongst them with any real strength behind their convictions either joined the Coalition or succumbed to scheming and corruption.

She put her datapad down and leaned over the portable command table, studying a holographic map of each level that comprised Sector 1 of the Hosnian ecumenopolis. A blue dot denoted the Knight’s base of operations, far enough below the surface to go unnoticed but not so far as to make traversal an obstacle. The smell of blood was almost completely gone after Aplek cleared the place of its criminal inhabitants—the lightsabre scoring was there to stay.

Eyes narrowed, she gestured to pull the map into a vertical sheet displaying every sector, and every other sector had a green fist to indicate protests. One sector was adorned with a red fire symbol—a riot.

The Ministry of Intelligence spent a year in advance gathering secrets on every member of the Senate they could, cover-ups, affairs, criminal ties, abuses of power, and every other skeleton one might hide in their closet. Once it was compiled, carefully calculated fabrications were thrown in the mix and when Aplek gave the word all of it was released onto the holonet, sent directly to news agencies and tabloids under the guise of activists seeking justice against corruption.

A green fist near the first riot changed to match it.

Zor’el smiled coolly.

The door to the safe house hissed open, and Karrdo ducked through, her appearance disguised with a grimy hood and mask common to the Hosnian poor, the latter of which she promptly removed.

 _“ <<Site Jenth is secure,>>”_ she rasped, the Cheunh rough and jarring in her throat. It would've been easier to speak her native Xaczik, but seeing as she learned it out of a mix of loyalty and frankly understandable spite, Zor'el could hardly bring herself to criticise the odd cadence that came from a Wookie speaking the Chiss tongue. She understood well the anger at being undervalued.

She noted it on the map with a purple star. That made ten sites total, one at Republic Military Command, one at three of the largest spaceports, five spread amongst the thickest population centres, and the final one, Site Jenth, directly below the Senate Building.

“ _< <Our materials will arrive tomorrow,>>_” she responded in kind, stroking her chin.

Karrdo growled quietly, “<< _the handlers had better work_.>>” A wild glint shined in her dark eyes and her mouth split in a harsh, toothy grin. “<< _Though I would relish such a ferocious battle were they to fail. >>_”

Zor’el brought the map into focus on the Senate Building, regarding it with icy disdain. “ _< <When our work here is complete, there will be plenty of opportunity for battle.>>_”

* * *

D’Qar was a garden world much like Takodana, lush with varied vegetation, vast oceans, a whole array of ecosystems and biomes well-suited for many different species, and it was far from almost all known hyperlanes—perfect for the Coalition.

Rey stood at the back of the cockpit with her arms crossed and glanced at Finn standing across from her, he seemed outwardly calm, so she returned her attention to the planet slowly taking up their field of view.

Much of the Coalition Fleet was spread throughout the galaxy trying to put out the fires set by the First Order, but that didn’t leave D’Qar defenceless. On their way through the system, they were pinged by no less than three dreadnaughts lurking in the shadows of celestial bodies and planetary rings to avoid drawing suspicion to any one location in the system, each accompanied by an imposing contingent of smaller ships. Each time Poe returned the appropriate signal to mark them as friendly.

An orbital docking station floated into visual range, guarded by a dozen corvettes and three cruisers. They made no move to intercept, but Vace brought them to a stop a reasonable distance away just in time for a blue light to flash on the comm—they were being haled.

Vace opened the channel without taking her eyes off the assembled ships, and the holographic figure of a male Sakuubian in a military uniform materialised.

“Unknown vessel, please identify," he said, brusque and cool.

“This is Commander Poe Dameron, call sign Black Leader,” Poe responded quickly. “My ship was destroyed on mission. We are requesting permission to land the vessel, Truth Seeker, within Haven landing zone.”

A few seconds passed before the man acknowledged something to his left, and nodded. “Permission granted. Welcome back, Black Leader.”

Poe closed the channel with a relieved smile, and Vace pushed forward on the thrusters, lifting the etheric rudder to bring them down into a smooth descent through D’Qar’s atmosphere. Poe’s coordinates brought them to a warm, coastal area of the southern hemisphere, first flying over the bright blue seas and white-gold beaches, before banking inland over the thick temperate rainforest. It carpeted a rolling landscape of small ridges and hills that were utterly dwarfed by an immense mesa on the horizon.

Buildings came into focus as they flew closer, neat and planned out as opposed to Ven-sha. Pre-fabs made up most of the outskirts, with permanent structures and decorative elements deeper in, a town perching high above the forest, protected by walls armed with shield towers and anti-air defences. Hangar bays were carved into the sides of the mesa, and Poe pointed out the one they needed to land in. Once the ship was secure, they disembarked with Poe leading and the droids at the back.

Rey barely heard anything Poe said about where they were, other than the town above being called ‘Haven,’ as she was too busy taking in everything else. The mountain base was extensive, but it wasn’t overly built up, much of the carved rock was bare, with cables and lights bolted in. Pillars and other support struts held the passages and chambers together, while the raised floor was the only artificial surface to be seen, the space beneath accommodating pipes and larger power cables. The air held a faint smell of damp minerals, but it wasn’t stale or unpleasant thanks to seemingly ubiquitous ventilation.

“Poe, welcome back!” A Bothan soldier in Coalition armour called as they passed by, grinning ear to ear. It happened a few more times while he led them to the Commander Centre, members of the Coalition greeting Poe and smiling, happy to see him returned in one piece, and most of them eyed her, Vace, Finn, and EROX with curiosity.

They entered into the command centre, a large, square chamber, each corner sectioned into communication banks, with three other hallways splitting off from different sides of the room. A large command table took up the middle, holo projectors displaying a planet Rey didn’t recognise and what seemed to be a First Order assault in progress. Six people stood around discussing it, but all deference went to one, a short, pale human woman who looked to be in her sixties, wearing a simple grey and dark blue uniform like everyone else. Her long brown hair, cut through with streaks of grey, was held back in a coiled braid.

Rey had just enough time to notice the lightsaber on her belt before the woman’s dark brown eyes fixed on her. She nearly stumbled as all her senses flared up at once, struck by the deep well of power this woman represented in the Force. The woman _exuded_ a sense of assurance and authority, and she looked at each of them before finally landing on Poe, which caused her to smile with relief.

He approached her with confidence and held out the data-chip. “Mission accomplished, General,” he said, spreading his free arm towards the rest of them, “I even made some new friends along the way.”

“I can see that,” she said dryly, taking the data-chip from him and passing it to one of the officers standing with her. “Get this analysed, please.”

As the officer hurried away, she gestured for the others to leave and returned her attention to the group. “Welcome to D’Qar, my name is Leia Organa. I trust I have all of you to thank that Dameron wasn’t lost on Jakku. Care to introduce yourselves?”

“Vace, and this is my daughter, Rey.”

Rey bowed her head politely, which Leia returned, and then her attention slid to Finn. “And who are you?” The way she said it made Rey quirk a brow as if she already knew.

“Finn,” he said shakily, arms rigid at his sides. “Finn Dorne. I’m… I’m from the First Order, a Stormtrooper. I helped Poe escape from the Finalizer Star Destroyer, we crashed on Jakku and ran into them.”

Poe nodded. “I wouldn’t have gotten out of there alive if it weren’t for him.”

Leia smiled sympathetically and stepped towards Finn, holding out one of her hands. He gingerly took it after a moment, and she placed her other hand over his, which seemed to immediately relax him. “You’re a brave man, and you’ve done well to come here. You’re more than welcome to join us and help stop the First Order before it’s too late.”

“I want to help, but there are others like me, orphans and freed slaves taken in by them, and people who only know that their life got better after the First Order came. I don’t want this to be a slaughter I just want it to stop.”

“I can promise you that I don’t want it to be a slaughter either, Finn. But I won't lie to you. It _will_ take blood, and it won’t be quick, these things take time even when you think you’ve won. But people like you show there is hope.”

Finn nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “I know it won’t be easy, but I’m here to fight, for the Coalition and for a better way forward. Thank you.”

Leia canted her head in understanding and let go, turning her attention once more to Rey and Vace.

Poe grinned. “After we crashed these ladies saved both our skins.” He thrust his chin at Vace, “it’s _her_ ship we arrived in.”

There was a long pause as Leia held Vace’s stare and Rey wondered if Leia was trying to get a read on her mama’s intentions or bearing, but even if she wasn’t actively hiding her connection to the Force Vace was a stone wall as usual. Nonetheless, Leia smiled. “Thank you, truly. The same welcome is open to you as well, if you wish to stay. Having those adept in the Force,” she said, glancing at Finn, “no matter their level of training, could easily tip the odds in our favour in many situations.”

Vace grimaced at that, sighing. “We are working on that,” she said, “but we are also here to fight, there is no other option.”

Nodding gratefully, Leia turned back to Poe. “Well, you’ve outdone yourself. I have other matters to attend to for now, so if you could get them familiarised?”

Poe saluted casually, “of course.” He faced the group with a pleased grin as Leia walked away to one of the communication banks. “Alright then, follow me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know :3


	8. Shadows on Naboo

Despite the massive Coalition complex running throughout the mesa, the outside bore almost no indication of it save the hangar bays, which could easily pass as a civilian spaceport. The town covering the surface, Haven, was wholly divorced from the Coalition’s blue and grey, militaristic trappings.

Poe took them out the surface entrance and through the town’s main thoroughfares, explaining as he went that when the First Order first began their campaign, Leia raised the alarm within the New Republic, but she was ignored. Republic territories weren’t being targeted, it was independents, isolated systems, small unions, and other vulnerable regions that didn’t stand a chance and only ended up adding to the First Order’s growing resources and raw numbers. It wasn't always a violent take-over, many worlds bent the knee to survive, a few embraced their new overlords with unsettling eagerness, but most tried to resist and suffered for it.

The result of all that conquering was all around them. Almost everyone living in Haven was a refugee fleeing the First Order’s zealotry, and it showed, many sported scars old and new alike, missing limbs or were already equipped with new prosthetics.

Finn struggled not to let the guilt creep into him, his throat constricting as the ink at the base of his neck almost felt like it was burning. The urge to scratch it off made him stuff his hands in his pockets. He nearly jumped when Rey put a hand on his shoulder.

“Try to relax and feel this place, you might be surprised,” she murmured and left him be to continue listening to Poe alongside Vace.

The suggestion made his heart hammer. She couldn’t be serious; a place like this must be rife with fear, anger, and hatred. But she had to have a reason for telling him that, he didn’t think she meant him any harm by it.

Finn took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He gradually dropped his walls as they walked, expecting a flood of cold, spiky emotions to assault his sense of being but instead he felt a sense of purpose. Help in resources, attention, and basic empathy made the life of a refugee bearable, they could start over, have a home again. Their resilience shined through in the liveliness of the town proper, decorated with flowerbeds, hanging baskets, the original plain off-white of the permanent buildings painted over with murals. They had communal and recreational spaces, and play areas for children. There was a school, a hospital, and community farms were everywhere. They had homes again, healthy, comfortable, protected. There was no sense of _fear_ , only defiance, and deep compassion for one another.

His heart lightened, and he cleared the thickness from his throat, paying attention to Poe again.

A town hall run by the civilians handled any issues they had, while a security office jointly run by civilians and Coalition members stood by to defend the town should the worst happen. No matter the hope it fostered, Haven was nonetheless designed for violence. Cover and defensive positions were everywhere though disguised as architectural flair, watchtowers dotted the perimeter wall, AA-guns could unfold from it, and a shield tower stood tall in the centre of town.

Poe also noted that every public building had a tunnel that would take the civilians to escape shuttles.

“More arrive every month,” he said, motioning down the built-up street where they stood to a freshly established district a block away. Pre-fab buildings were quick to establish while a more permanent district was planned out. “And it’ll get worse the longer this goes on. But we do what we can.”

“This is a lot of construction,” said Vace, “the General must have _some_ in the Republic who support her.”

Poe nodded. “Quietly, yeah, but they can't openly endorse her or they risk losing their positions in the Senate for supporting a 'rogue state,' like we're some collection of terrorists. That situation is getting more strained the longer this goes on, so now we get at least half the materials we need directly from D'Qar itself, and we're working on the rest."

"Did the Coalition come first or this place?"

"Leia founded Haven ten years ago, had people keeping their eyes and ears open for _any_ sign of the Empire coming back for decades. When her reputation got smeared in the Senate, she knew she’d need a base of operations separate from the Republic if they ever came back—which they did.”

“As the First Order.”

He grimaced and crossed his arms. “Yeah. At first it was just the people who fought with her in the old days, and when the First Order started their little crusade she acted real quick to make connections with resistance cells, freedom fighters, anyone in the Outer Rim who was trying to fight them. The Coalition kind of just built from there, and when the Republic closed the door on refugees, she had her contacts direct them here." His lip curled in disgust. "That decision showed a lot of people what their leaders really cared about. That’s when _I_ joined, wish I'd done it sooner.”

“Commander Dameron!”

They all turned to see a bronze-skinned Abednedo man in a Coalition uniform approach. His nameplate read Private Fauste Daniil. “Couldn’t get you on holo,” he huffed, catching his breath. “You turn it off or something?”

Poe winced. “No, the FO kind of took it off me.”

“Damn, well, General Organa wants you all to come back right away.”

“Did they crack the chip already?”

“No, something else, follow me.”

Fauste led them at a jog back underground where Leia awaited them in the command centre. The table showed a different planet, Naboo, with little to no fleet presence friendly or hostile. Leia was staring at it deep in thought, frowning, one hand to her chin.

Fauste saluted quickly. “General Organa.”

“Thank you,” she said, nodding to dismiss Fauste. She turned to the face the group, clasping her hands behind her back.

Poe propped his hands on his hips, standing straight. “Has something happened?”

“We just received a troubling report from Agent Holdo on Naboo.”

“Amilyn? What was she doing on Naboo?”

“Visiting a friend, I gave her leave to do so, but while she was there, she discovered a long string of disappearances that seemed more than mundane kidnappings. Shortly after looking into it, she encountered First Order special ops using SFGs to patrol an area of archaeological significance forbidden to the public. She believes it has something to do with the late Emperor Palpatine.”

“Naboo was his homeworld,” Finn spoke up, hands behind his back, “wasn’t it?”

Leia looked at him and nodded. “Indeed it was, and the people have done everything they can to erase his presence from it, but there’s no telling what secrets he may have hidden there.”

“Secrets the First Order could be after.”

“Exactly.”

Leia observed the rest of the group. “I can’t leave D’Qar without risk, the First Order would leap at the chance to kill me, so I would ask _you_ to investigate this in my place and help Amilyn however you can.”

Poe frowned deeply. “Has she alerted Security?”

A troubled look darkened Leia’s eyes, and she sighed. “She has, but there were _complications_. Naboo is dealing with the same unrest as other members of the New Republic at this time, talk of secession is being bandied about and not just on Naboo.”

His eyebrows nearly shot off his head. “They can’t be serious! If the New Republic breaks apart, we’ll be even more vulnerable to the First Order!”

Leia hunched her shoulders, a sour grimace pulling the line of her mouth thin and tight. “You can’t blame them for only seeing what’s in front of them. Even if Security didn’t have their hands full quelling protests, Amilyn lacks evidence beyond testimonial, but I trust her. She wouldn’t report this if she wasn’t sure. I want to know what the First Order is doing on Naboo and if it has anything to do with Palpatine.” She fixed her gaze on Vace, “will you do this?”

Vace nodded stoically after a beat and Leia gestured at a nearby technician who approached with a square metal case. “Good,” Leia said, opening it to reveal commlinks, compact datapads, and a heavily modified transmission board. “These are to keep in touch with each other while you’re in the field. The datapads have been encrypted for you to safely store and transfer information, and _that_ is for your ship, it will give you access to a secure channel with which to report in.”

Poe took the case and saluted, as did Finn, and Leia smiled stiffly. “Good luck.”

* * *

With the transmission board installed and pre-flight preparations out the way, Rey settled into the co-pilot seat next to Vace, checking systems as they pulled out of the hangar bay and put Haven behind them.

“Mama,” she said quietly, keeping her eyes on the steady power gauge, “I know you just wanted to keep me safe, but I can’t help but think about all the people we could have helped somehow, all the people here who had to run because there was no one else to protect them. The things we could have set right on Jakku. I know it was for a reason, but it always made me feel so... useless.” She got no verbal response to that and Rey chewed her lip, looking out the canopy as D’Qar’s atmosphere thinned and gave way to the ether. “I still want to find mother, but we need to do what we can for others too, Coalition or not.”

Vace sighed quietly and reached out, hesitating for a second before she put a gentle hand on Rey’s shoulder. The touch was unexpected, and Rey looked at her, hopeful.

“I had forgotten what the point of having strength was,” Vace murmured, “I’ve done you a disservice.”

Rey put her hand over Vace’s. “No, you haven’t.”

Vace shook her head, looking at her. “For all my training, I put sheltering you over your growth. Strength for the sake of it, discipline without application, honour without a means to test it, unity to a group of two—I allowed weakness into my heart because of fear, and you suffered for it.”

“Well, now we have a chance to do something worthwhile with our strength, and so will Finn.”

Vace managed a smile at that and squeezed her shoulder before letting go and putting in the coordinates for Naboo.

* * *

Fifteen hours of uneventful travel saw them landing in the city of Theed. Naboo’s capital was rich in culture, history, and material wealth in equal measure, the seat of planetary leadership was well-known for its beautiful sandstone buildings, majestic, sweeping architecture, and green shingle rooftops. It was a shame then for it to be so desolate and empty as they walked from an eerily quiet spaceport, passing only a handful of other travellers and watched closely by staff and Security officers.

EROX remained to guard the ship.

A middle-aged human woman waited for them at the bottom of the spaceport’s grand staircase. She was tall and pale-skinned, with blue eyes and wavy lilac hair cut to chin length. She wore dark blue coveralls with a grey utility vest and open toe sandals, with a heavy blaster pistol holstered to her right hip.

“Getting yourself into another mess, Amilyn?” Poe greeted her with a dry grin.

“What can I say, I’m a magnet for chaos,” she said airily before seriousness darkened her face. “But we should talk somewhere private, follow me.”

Following Amilyn through Theed revealed the extent of the planet’s civil unrest. From the air of unease to the few people walking the streets, and radical fliers plastered to walls and pillars, all calling for disgraced political figures to face judgement and decrying the Bureau of Security of failing to keep the populace safe. Uncollected trash lay everywhere, much of it scattered and in the process of being tidied by custodial droids, which was very much not the norm. “What’s with the mess?” Poe asked quietly, “didn’t think Theed could _be_ messy.”

“Oh, but it _can_. Since officers have been distracted with the protests, a group of youths decided it would be _funny_ if they released a virus into the waste processing systems network. All the droids attached to it freaked out, and the systems went haywire.”

“Let me guess, security blamed that on the protestors?”

“Indeed, they cracked down hard last night. Protestors got their teeth broken for something that wasn’t their fault, and the uninvolved are still cleaning the smell of sewage from their homes. Everyone was angry and nobody won.”

Poe shook his head, curling his lips in disgust. “Did they at least catch the little bastards who did it?”

Amilyn shot him a vicious smile. “No, but _I_ did. They're helping clean up so I don't reveal them."

They turned down a side street to a small hotel. An overbearing smell of citrus filled the air of the cosy, wood-panelled lobby and Amilyn smiled and waved at the receptionist as they passed. She led them up a spiral stairwell, the scent of cleaning product following them all the while, and up to a hallway on the second floor. Amilyn’s room was at the far left end of the hall, and she promptly opened the door with her keycard.

Plush viridian carpet softened their footfalls as they all stepped inside a spacious room, earth-tone room, warmed by sunlight. A balcony on the opposite side overlooked one of Theed’s many tributaries, clear waters glittering in the sun, waterfowl placidly swimming with their young—one could almost forget the tension in the air. The room itself was furnished for a group, with at least three single beds, two couches, and a couple of armchairs arranged around a caf table, a desk, and a bench on the balcony.

Amilyn swept her arms out, “please, make yourselves comfortable. I didn’t move to a larger room for you all the stand around.”

Poe didn’t need telling twice and claimed one of the couches, smiling when Finn took an armchair, and Rey sat on the couch opposite. Amilyn took the other armchair, crossing her legs.

“So,” said Vace, standing near them with crossed arms. “What can you tell us?”

“How much did Leia tell you?”

“Assume we know nothing.”

“Well, I was visiting a friend of mine this past month when she told me her son had left for some kind of scientific trip to the north but never came back. He didn’t send a message, didn’t answer her calls, nothing. So I looked into it for her and found there have been dozens of disappearances just like his, people offered work at the archaeological dig up at Coriss who drop off the map shortly after.”

Poe leaned forward. “Were any of the disappearances reported?”

“Oh, yes, but they haven’t gotten far. Someone with a lot of influence doesn’t want the disappearances looked into. Trails go cold almost immediately, evidence goes missing, and Coriss Security does a big song and dance about the investigations going poorly. And now that all these skeletons have fallen out of people’s closets, they have even less incentive to pretend they care.”

“You sound like you think that was on purpose.”

“And you don’t? I believe the righteous anger of the people is being exploited by those who have no desire or interest in upholding our morals. Those exposed deserve to be ejected from their positions and jailed if necessary, but revealing even a quarter of that information would have taken expensive, _concerted_ effort the likes of which most activist groups don’t have. That narrows down who would be interested in causing unrest because _that_ is the main result right now.”

The thought sent a chill down his spine, and Poe rubbed his neck. “So when did you see the First Order?” he said, trying to move on. There wasn’t much they could do about the unrest, he just hoped it led to something positive in the long run. The protesters were in the right; those at fault _should_ face the consequences, but if someone aimed to take advantage of the unrest _before_ that happened…

He shook the thought from his head. It would only distract him with worry.

Mercifully, Amilyn didn’t see fit to press her conclusion. “When I went to Coriss myself. I decided to see if I could recon the dig site. Instead, I stumbled across a patrol in the forest, First Order Stealth Troopers, de-cloaked. They’d run afoul of an angry shale boar, must have smelled them because it had killed one of them, looked like it rammed them into a tree. I avoided detection and made my way back to Theed’s Security Bureau.”

“And?”

“Well, I told them what I’d seen, and they contacted Coriss Security to corroborate. They said all I’d seen was hunters fighting a boar, that hunters lost a dear friend to it, and that it was in poor taste for me to sensationalise it into something as absurd as that. They convinced Theed Security I was a hysteric to be safely ignored.”

To think the First Order could insinuate itself on a Republic world like that made Poe clench his hands.

“What do you want us to do, specifically?” asked Rey, “I assume you have a plan.”

Amilyn smiled brightly, clapping her hands together, “I do, indeed! We’re going to head to Coriss and dig up _everything_ we can about that dig site. Talk to people, go to the bars, and investigate the Preservation Society that calls the town home. In fact, before I forget,” she said absently, pulling out her datapad and tapping out some commands. “I’ll send you what I’ve found so far, give you an idea of who to talk to. After that, hopefully, we arrive at the dig site forewarned of any danger and deal with whatever malicious dealings the First Order has there.”

“Preservation Society?”

“Yes! A shame really, it used to be a small group that dealt in local antiquities, but recently they came into a lot of funding from a private benefactor which promptly led to the excavation. A touch suspicious, one might say."

“Won’t they know your face?” Finn asked.

Amilyn nodded, “which is why I’ll keep out of sight and tap into the bureau's transcripts, see what I can find while the rest of your fresher, more anonymous faces do the talking parts. Does that sound agreeable?”

Poe nodded, as did the others, and Amilyn practically jumped to her feet. “Delightful! Do you need a rest or something to eat? Or are you fine to head out now?”

“We’re good to go.”

* * *

A safe rendezvous was agreed upon before embarking, and they arrived at Coriss by shuttle just as night was falling, the verdant, mountainous landscape and its alpine forest backlit by the setting sun. The town was built in tiers, each older and grander the higher one climbed until at the very top sat the mayor’s estate.

Amilyn kept up appearances and split from the group before they even boarded the shuttle, striding off into Coriss as if she didn’t even know them. Vace had little doubt the woman could handle herself despite her incongruent cheeriness.

Finn took the initiative and made plans with Poe to bar hop and see what the mood was amongst the general public, to which Poe grinned and quickly agreed to, and they decided to cover more ground by splitting between the north and south ends of town.

“I’m going to see what I can find with one of the families,” Rey said quietly, watching the two leave. “What are you going to do?”

The implication that Rey wished to do it alone hit Vace like a brick, but she refused to let it show. There was no going back to the stagnancy of Jakku, Rey had to be allowed to forge ahead on her own if she was to grow, even if growth in itself was risky.

Treachery snaked up her throat, words she wasn’t meant to say, _promised_ not to say, and she strangled them.

“I will investigate this ‘preservation’ society, perhaps I can gain entry under the guise of being a fellow archaeologist,” she said, crossing her arms.

Rey nodded. “You definitely know enough to make it work, be careful.”

She resisted the urge to reach out and nodded back, “you too.”

It didn’t take long for Rey to disappear through Coriss’s flower-lined streets and Vace stamped out the panic that tried to take hold in her. She turned in the other direction and navigated her way up the tiers until open streets gave way to fenced communities, grand estates, and increased Security. Officers stared at her with barely concealed suspicion each time she passed one, but none of them made any move to impede her, yet.

Nestled between the gilded trellises and vineyards of nobility, the Coriss Preservation Society building looked like a repurposed temple, with grand archways, pillars, and towering double-doors. No officers stood guard, so she approached with her ears on a swivel and rang the bell. The camera above her moved to get a better look at who was calling.

After a minute, the door opened just enough to reveal a tall, young human woman with warm, dark brown skin and braided hair. She dressed in neat, scholarly robes and offered an uncertain smile.

“Yes, can I help you?”

Vace bowed politely and put on as disarming a manner someone of her stature and ‘predatory’ appearance could muster. “Sorry to bother you, miss, but I heard there was some manner of museum or historical society here, and as an archaeologist myself I thought it only fitting to pay a visit while I pass through.”

The young woman’s awkwardness melted away, replaced by a bright and genuine curiosity. “Oh! Well, yes, this is the Coriss Preservation Society,” she said, opening the door fully as she gave Vace a once over, “you’re an archaeologist?”

“Well, part archaeologist, part explorer, delving into ancient temples presents certain risks, and I prefer to be prepared. May I ask your name?”

“Sareen, and you?”

“Vace, may I come in?”

Sareen eyed her for a moment and stepped aside, allowing Vace to enter. The entry hall was nothing special, a secretarial space, but the main chamber was another story entirely. Shelves and displays filled it to the brim with historical tombs and curios related to the long history of Coriss and its surroundings, from the high drama of ancient conflicts and heroes to the more mundane tales of day to day affairs long ago. It wasn’t difficult to act impressed when she found herself genuinely interested in the displays, examining the nearest one that held a suit of Corrisian armour from a thousand years ago.

Pulling herself away from it, Vace returned her attention to Sareen, who followed closely to ensure the items were not disturbed. “Are you the curator?”

Sareen appeared flattered, laughing a little. “No, that honour falls to Lord Delian,” she said, her cheer faltering at his name. She quickly masked it, forcing a smile. “But one day, hopefully, until then, I handle the day to day running and guide people if necessary.”

“Do you find it rewarding to teach others?”

“Oh, very! People come from far and wide on historical tours across Naboo and Coriss is no exception, though most off-worlders restrict themselves to the Theed Archives and move on. They aren’t interested in ‘small’ histories.”

Vace nodded in understanding. “They want the big picture,” she said, eyeing another display that held an old, ceremonial blade, fractured in the middle with the disparate pieces aligned. “A shame not everyone shares our passion for the details.” She moved over to the blade, paying attention as Sareen followed her step for step. “Some see only money, culture to be pilfered for personal gain,” she murmured, looking at Sareen. “Or power to be exploited.”

Sareen stiffened, a little too much white showing in her eyes as the implication of Vace’s words registered. She swallowed and looked away, rubbing her arm. “Such people have no place here,” she muttered.

Keeping her voice low, Vace turned to face Sareen fully. “They’ve darkened you doorstep before?”

“Who are you? Are you with the Coalition?”

“Right now, I am a fellow scholar, and we are talking about culture and those who would defile it for their own gain. What I am when I leave here is up to you.”

Sareen fixed her with a questioning stare and Vace canted her head, conceding to her question even as the words felt strange on her tongue. “I _am_ with the Coalition. I want to help you, but I need to understand what is happening.”

“It started with an anonymous donation. I was happy at first, but then Lord Delian began meeting with intense off-worlders. He organised the dig at Soren’s Fall per their request.”

“Are they looking for something?”

Sareen blinked quickly and looked away. “Yes, I overheard one of their meetings. They spoke of a temple and a vault, and that they were having trouble getting inside the latter.” Her eyes grew wet, and Sareen wrapped her arms around herself. “That’s when the disappearances started,” she murmured. “I was too afraid to say anything. One of them had a lightsaber. Every time he came to speak with Lord Delian it felt like winter blew in with him. I just focused on the museum and pretended that I didn’t know what was happening.”

A lightsaber. Vace cursed internally and put a hand on Sareen’s shoulder, which caused her to meet Vace’s stare with big, wet eyes. “It’s not your fault,” she said firmly.

“If I had just said something—”

“If you had said anything _,_ you would have almost certainly disappeared as well. The Security Office is compromised in Coriss.”

Horror flashed across Sareen’s face, freeing her tears. “ _Stars_ ,” she breathed. “What are you going to do?”

“Put a stop to it. Do you have family or friends you can stay with outside of Coriss?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Good. Pretend we had a pleasant talk and check out for the night as you usually would, then leave. Do not go home, do not linger, can you do that?”

Sareen nodded with a sniff, and Vace nodded back before coaxing Sareen towards the refresher to wash her face and drink some water.

* * *

Melodic tunes played over the burble of people talking, eating, and ordering drinks, and Finn rolled the funeral bead between his fingers until his drink was handed to him. He thanked the tender and adopted an easy-going mask.

“Hey, is there anything interesting to see in town?” he asked, getting a raised brow for his trouble. “It’s just that I was told Naboo was the prettiest planet in the sector, but Theed was a wash since, well, you know. But it seems pretty calm here.”

“Yeah,” said the tender, an old, grizzly human man with a salt and pepper beard and bald head. “For now.”

“You think people will protest here too?”

“Best move on with your sightseeing soon if you want to avoid it, son. I like to think we’re not violent folk, but people have limits.”

Someone else caught the bartender’s attention with another order. Finn sighed and turned away from the bar to observe the room, idly swirling his drink.

It might’ve looked normal at first, but the atmosphere felt like wearing a crown of thorns. People were being comforted over drinks, some drank alone with distant eyes, a couple of hushed conversations were emphasised by distressed, angry gesturing. A group of three humans at the back corner kept leering at him. Finn glanced at their boots, but they weren’t clean enough to be First Order—even undercover the meticulous tidiness was hard to shrug off. Even as a traitor he was more put together than Poe if their bunks were any indication.

His commlink beeped, and Finn turned back to the bar, activating his earpiece. “Yeah?”

“Hey, found anything?” Poe asked.

“Well, the people seem stressed, and I’ve had three different bartenders tell me things are going to get ugly soon.”

“I overheard talk about a young couple that went missing last night, these people are ready to explode.”

Finn slowly took a drink of his non-alcoholic cocktail, watching the group of three in his peripheral. “You being watched?” he murmured.

“Naturally. Be careful, you hear me?”

“You too.”

He walked out to see if the group would follow him, which they did after a moment, hanging back by about twenty feet while he made his way to another bar a few doors down. He felt the weight of the blaster pistol Vace gave him before they disembarked. It was her old holdout weapon when she still used blasters as her primary weapons, and it imparted an echo of confidence that helped keep his breathing steady and his posture at ease. He was a soldier, but he was on his own, unsure how far away his sudden and all-too-fresh allies were.

He shook that thought away. It wouldn’t do him any favours to doubt the crew.

The crew—he afforded himself a small smile at that.

The gang muttered indistinctly, and he passed by his intended destination. Instead, he rounded a corner and broke into a run. Hurried boots thumped against the marble flagstones behind him, and he ducked into an alley, drawing his pursuers away from prying eyes.

“Hey!” One of them called out to him, pulling ahead of the others. A needle-fine sting of aggression pricked his senses, and Finn instinctively ducked as a baton swung for his head. He spun around under the swing and sent his attacker to the ground with a kidney shot. The other two scrambled to pull their batons and charge him. Finn focused on the smaller of the two men, weaving around a swing and delivering a quick throat punch. The shorter man gagged and dropped his weapon, slumping to the ground.

“Bastard!” the third man snarled, trying to land a backhanded swing at Finn’s face. Finn ducked under it and rammed his foot between his attacker’s thighs, taking them off their feet. Foreign shock and pain flashed like a spider web of ice, and the man went down red-faced and sweating bullets.

Quickly grabbing the batons, Finn threw them down the far end of the alley with a metallic clatter. He pulled his pistol and knelt to grab his first attacker by the shirt collar. “You want to tell me what that was about?” he said, keeping his voice low and firm. “Because people have been going missing and you seem like the kind of guys who might know something about that.”

The man was pale and lanky with a narrow face and week-old scruff. His eyes widened at the blaster, and he uneasily held his hands where Finn could see them. “Just wanted some easy money,” he grated through his clenched teeth, “pay is good for off-worlders.”

“Who pays you?”

“Some creepy bastard wearing fancy black robes. Never got a name, we just hand folk off to him south of Soren’s Fall, just outside the excavation they got going on over there.”

“What do they need people for, labour?”

The man smiled darkly. “Sod knows, but those folk disappear, never seen ‘em again, so I reckon labour’s probably not it.”

Finn glanced at the man’s friends, who were slowly picking themselves off the ground, so he hauled the kidnapper to his feet and threw him at them. The three tumbled in a pile of limbs and swearing, and he made his escape while they were distracted, quickly calling Poe on the commlink. “Hey, so, about being followed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know :3
> 
> If you'd like to follow me for shitposts and sneak peeks, [I'm on tumblr.](https://lo-a-destructed-ass.tumblr.com/)


	9. Insidious Depths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: A minor character commits suicide.

Solle Evardoux, the only child to parents Madree and Eliase, was the most recent person to go missing in the last three days. The family lived on the edge of town, surrounded by an orchard of trees Rey had never seen before, with scale-like bark and canopies like umbrellas. She almost let herself become distracted, eyeing their bright orange fruits as a sweet, floral smell played on the air, but no—she had more important things to focus on.

The house sat dark, windows bereft of light, not a sound to be heard beyond the growing buzz of nightlife, and it pricked the back of Rey’s neck as she approached to find the front door left open.

She ducked out of the immediate firing line, waiting a moment for any sound of movement within but none came. All Rey _could_ hear was the sound of running water, but she couldn’t sense anything alive. She carefully drew her weapon and edged her way into the house.

The first room was a kitchen in disarray, chairs tossed, the table shoved to one side, the food of a meal for two people scattered, and the tap left running. The smell of cauterised flesh hung in the air. She didn’t notice any scoring or damage to the door controls, leading her to the possibility that it was opened to someone familiar or with authority.

The kitchen split off through open archways to her immediate right and in the far left corner, but directly ahead of her was a closed door. She briefly checked the adjacent rooms but found nothing disturbed, so she returned to the door and opened it. A dark stairwell greeted her and Rey hit the lights, illuminating what looked to be a wine cellar. She slowly descended until she could see the whole room, walls lined with wooden casks, and two bodies face down in the middle of the floor.

The smell of burned flesh was pungent here.

Rey grimaced and hurried over to them, crouching to inspect the bodies as best she could without touching them. Humans, a man and a woman of middle-age wearing simple clothes and marriage pendants, and both of them had been shot to death as far as Rey could tell. She pulled out her datapad and flicked through the last entry she opened, a profile on the Evardoux family courtesy of Amilyn. The pictures matched.

Cursing under her breath, Rey put the datapad away and chewed her lip, wondering she to do. She had to inform the others, of course, but—

“—wouldn’t have happened if you had done your job!”

A voice from above, altered by a helmet’s vocaliser. Rey tensed and slowly crept under the cellar stairs, crouching amongst the boxes.

“Well, we’re almost done here, aren’t we?”

A second voice, also altered, and footsteps came through the front door.

The second voice spoke again, “hold on, that door wasn’t open when I left. The light was off too.”

Rey remained perfectly still, watching as two Stormtroopers slowly descended the stairs overhead, blasters held at the ready as they scanned the room for any sign of danger. The one in front seemed to be a regular trooper, but the second one had a red pauldron. The first edged by her and lowered his weapon, “nothing here.”

The officer behind him grunted and smacked the back of his helmet. “But _someone_ was! There’s a witness out there now, you fool!”

“Who can they tell? We'll be long gone before they can do anything about it.”

“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood! Let’s just deal with this and get back to base.”

They both turned away from her hiding spot and began moving towards the bodies.

Rey lunged, igniting her lightsaber with a crackling hiss as she drove it through the back of the first trooper. There was almost no resistance as it sank to the hilt, easily punching through armour, bone, and muscle before emerging just below the sternum and causing his body to jerk up on his toes, the air forced from his lungs in a startled exhale. Rey withdrew, letting the body fall as she spun the blade and sliced through the barrel of the officer’s rifle.

Stumbling back, the officer dropped their ruined weapon and tried to pull a pistol. Rey charged, unwilling to test her use of the Force in the middle of a fight, and shouldered them into the casks. The officer grunted in pain and Rey grabbed the arm holding their pistol, twisting it and herself around until the elbow joint hit her shoulder, and pulled hard. The joint cracked and Rey bent her knees, hauling the screaming trooper overhead. Their back hit the floor with a hard thud and clatter of armour, winding them, giving Rey the time to fasten cuffs to their wrists.

She knew keeping those was a good idea.

Activating her commlink, she opened a channel to the rest of the team.

“If you can, come to the Evardoux homestead. I have someone we can question.”

* * *

It didn’t take long for them to converge on the address, Finn met up with Poe and BB-8 along the way, Vace was already there when they arrived, and Amilyn turned up only a minute after.

The officer was a Nagai woman, the name 'Vexal Shiron' printed in small, black enamel lettering on her breastplate, and without her helmet she was visibly sweating under the cellar lights, sat up against the casks with her arms cuffed in front of her. Finn tried not to feel the scratching pain at the edge of his senses and stood twisting the memorial bead between his fingers. She kept glancing at it, eyes growing flinty when they met his.

Vace crouched in front of her and Vexal glared, jutting her chin.

“The only way you get out of this situation is if you tell us what to expect at Soren’s Fall,” said Vace, her tone firm and quiet with a hint of threat.

“Heretics!” Vexal spat, lips curled in a sneer, “the Dark Mother will see your bodies turned to ash, scattered to the stars to feed Her hunger!”

“And what about your brother?” asked Finn, drawing everyone’s attention. “He can’t join the Mother if he isn’t cremated. You’d let that happen?”

Her anger faltered. She looked at the body of her fellow soldier, and so did Finn.

His eyes lingered on the blackened hole cut through the centre of his chest, and he wondered how easy it was for Rey to do it. Perhaps she'd taken a life before, Jakku could be a dangerous place, they lived in proximity to unscrupulous people, a Hutt, and the barons all too happy to let people starve if their scrap wasn't good enough--he could see her having done it before.

Vexal grimaced. “He… sacrifices must be made in life and in death,” she muttered, “to protect Her children from those who would do them harm.”

He moved closer, and Vace stepped aside, watching him closely. “And what about his family and friends?” he asked, holding up Slip’s bead. “You can make sure they get their tether to the Void.”

Vexal looked up at him with those hard, flinty eyes, and seemed to study his face a moment before recognition hit her. Anger curled her lips back like she was ready to bite him. “ _You!_ " she snarled. "I know your face! Traitor! How dare you carry a child of Hers? You are unworthy of them! I hope Ruin cleaves your head from your shoulders for your weakness!"

A sick shiver passed through him and he saw Poe cringe in his peripheral. “Ruin is here?”

Vexal sneered, “yes, yes he is. He arrived recently to expedite Lord Ralveg’s work here. I hope the lot of you are executed for all to see.”

Vace waved her left hand in a horizontal sweep. “Sleep,” she said, the power in her voice understated. Vexal’s eyes rolled, closed, and her head dipped until her chin touched her chest.

Finn looked at her in alarm, but Vace ignored him. “They would not send the Emperor’s enforcer for trinkets,” she said, crossing her arms.

“I agree, they’re risking an all-out war with the New Republic,” said Poe, hands on his hips. He looked at Amilyn. “Did you find anything?”

“More than I expected to,” she said, eyes dark. “They’re after a vault of artefacts left behind by Darth Sidious. Officers have been feverishly talking about it just in the last few days. They frequently spoke about the ‘good old days,’ and signed off to each other with ‘Long Live the Emperor.’” Anger made her jaw set tight. “It seems not everyone from the Imperial Remnant left for the Unknown Regions. I’ve sent what I collected to Theed, but it sounded like they were _very_ close to achieving what they came here to do.”

“We need to stop this, now. Let’s make our way to the site, do some recon, and keep our ears open for patrols. We can come up with a plan once we know what kind of opposition is in place. Sound good?”

Finn swallowed his unease as Poe looked at each of them, getting a nod from everyone, or an affirmative beep from BB-8, and nodded when their eyes met. Poe smiled reassuringly and patted his shoulder as he passed by. “Good, let’s go.”

As everyone filtered out, Finn couldn’t help but linger on Vexal, wondering what this encounter would teach her, that heretics could murder her friends at a moment’s notice. He sighed and hurried after the others.

* * *

The warm light of sunset had long since disappeared by the time they made it to Soren’s Fall, leaving them to navigate by flashlight in a darkness that seemed to press down on them. Nonetheless, they made it to the site without incident, cresting a hill that overlooked a patch of cleared forest lit by floodlights.

“Get down!” Vace hissed. They covered their lights and kept low, observing the First Order from afar.

A sheer cliff face that was much narrower at the top than it was at the bottom comprised the temple entrance, a triangular doorway carved into its flat surface. The encampment around it was built similarly to Coriss itself, forced to build in tiers thanks to the sloping terrain with only a thin band of flat ground where a river once flowed. It occurred to Rey she was looking at a dead waterfall.

Workers milled around the camp, loading crates onto nondescript freighters while Stormtroopers kept watch, but there was no sign of Sith. Except for a First Order Upsilon-class command shuttle that Finn pointed out.

“That one is Ruin’s,” he muttered, frowning.

Rey looked at him and opened her mouth, only to see his face shift into a look of alarm a second before Vace’s did. An acidic tingle hit the back of her throat a half-second later. She lunged to her feet and spun around, lightsabre hissing to life just as Vace’s did.

A flashbang thumped to the ground in front of them. Vace launched it twenty feet in the opposite direction where it popped off, briefly haloing entities in the dark.

Everyone uncovered their lights, revealing shimmering figures between the trees, reflective humanoids whose masks shattered when they moved too fast for their stealth fields to maintain the illusion. Six black armoured Shadow Troopers levelled blasters their way, and Rey lunged into a guard stance with Vace, deflecting the opening salvo as Finn, Poe, BB-8, and Amilyn dove for cover.

One bolt reflected into the head of a trooper, punching through the visor and sending them to the ground, smoke trailing out of their helmet. Most went wide, and Vace broke away. Moving fast enough to ripple the air around her, she closed the distance and took the firing arm off a second trooper, decapitating them in the next stroke.

Rey darted between the trees, blaster bolts following her. She heard the others fire back and kept her blade up as she rounded a trunk to find the backline of their attackers. A third trooper staggered from a shot to the chest, breastplate smouldering and buckled but unbroken. They noticed her and Rey lunged, kicking the rifle out of their hands before she took their head off their shoulders.

The fourth trooper turned towards her, raising their weapon as Vace’s blade work and blaster fire from the rest of the crew took care of troopers five and six behind them. Rey deflected the shot and ducked behind a tree, only to hear the tell-tale sizzle of a lightsaber piercing a body. She poked her head out to see Vace shove the last trooper to the ground, a smoking hole in the middle of their chest.

Vace made a sharp gesture, and they extinguished their blades.

All was silent, each of them holding their breath as they listened for sounds of alarm but none came, and Rey exhaled slowly, putting her lightsaber away in its pouch on the back of her belt. Vace nodded at her and did the same. “Everyone in one piece?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” said Poe, scanning their surroundings. “I don’t think they heard us down there.”

“We can use these,” Finn said, grim-faced as he crouched over one of the bodies to start pulling off the belt-mounted stealth field generator. Rey quickly followed suit, and they passed the SFGs around until everyone had one, except BB-8. He would have to stay out of sight the old-fashioned way. “As long as we don’t make any sudden moves, these should keep us hidden.”

Vace eyed the bodies. “But not from adepts if we try to ambush them in close quarters. They’ll sense the intent as we did.”

Finn winced, nodding, and Poe patted his shoulder. “Let’s get a closer look at what we’re dealing with.”

Walking in single-file, the group slowly made their way down the western slope, skirting the edge of the encampment and getting as close as they could to the temple entrance.

Finn stumbled ahead of her but kept moving, and Rey assumed there was a root she didn’t see until the nape of her neck prickled and she hit with a wave of unnatural cold completely independent of her surroundings. She hunched her shoulders with a grimace and looked behind her to see Vace’s ears were folded back. Vace felt it too.

Poe gestured to halt, and they stopped fifty feet from the temple entrance, hidden by a large, fallen tree coated in moss.

Droids moved in and out of the temple, clunky models made for construction and hauling materials, depositing crates just outside for organic workers to collect. If the feeling she was getting was any indication, there was a very good reason for using droids, but what that meant for the kidnapped people sank further and further away from the mundane and survivable.

Vace spoke first, pricking her ears in case of approach. “We should split here.”

“Why?” asked Amilyn, looking alarmed at the suggestion.

“Because there is something very wrong with that temple and if you or Poe were to enter I cannot say for certain if you would leave.”

“You think that’s why the workers aren’t going inside?”

“Yes. I can feel a… it isn’t a presence, it’s an echo. Something wretched was done here and recently. These effects can impact people without the Force far more readily as they cannot actively resist it, at least not without some form of protection, which would take time and expertise we do not have.”

Poe sighed, running a hand over his head. “Alright, Amilyn and I can keep our eyes peeled out here.”

Amilyn glanced through a break in the log. “I can probably do more out here, anyway,” she said, sounding distracted. “Mess with their ships, the droids—cause distractions if we need them.”

It was a risky proposition to separate, at least two dozen guards were walking the site, and more workers, more eyes. But Rey knew they could get more done, and she, Finn, and Vace were the ones who could enter the temple without being overwhelmed. She eyed Finn worriedly, wondering if his affinity for empathy would change matters, but he was staring at the temple entrance with a determined look on his face. Perhaps he would be fine.

With a quick ‘good luck,’ Vace led the way as they activated their stealth fields, passing through the outer archway and into the clinically lit entrance hall. A hand on the shoulder kept them connected as they moved.

Power cables for floodlights snaked across the floor, casting ghoulish shadows against the artefacts yet to be moved. They lined the space, most of them were ancient statues pilfered from other locations, the style and material foreign to Naboo. Most were animals of some kind, but some of them looked like people, and one caught Rey’s eye in particular, a statue of brilliantly orange stone, carved smooth into an alien visage.

It looked like a man, with pointed ears and long, swept-back hair. His face was accented by ridges, spines, and tendrils, with sharp, inorganic embellishments to denote ornate jewellery affixed to the bridge of his nose and the ridges on his cheekbones. Something about it was magnetic to her, pulling at something far back in her mind like a gardener trying to uproot a very stubborn weed. It brought the taste of clay to her lips, clay and dust, and the smell of old, ancient ash long since forgotten. She felt a hot, bone-dry breeze that wasn't there and she recoiled from the statue, fearing some kind of curse trying to lure her in. The ancient tombs and belongings of certain force users were well known for such things that the hands of droids would not trigger.

Rey tore her eyes away from the statue and focused on what was ahead.

The prickling grew sharper as they entered the temple proper, like carnivorous teeth snapping at the nape of her neck. She wondered how Finn was doing, but he was keeping pace. She hoped that meant he was handling it.

Stretching high above them, green crystalline lights hung from the vaulted ceiling, held aloft by massive, square pillars and framed by the second floor that looked over the central space. A statue glowered at them from the far end of the chamber, a twisted and hunched humanoid figure with clawed hands and warped skin, dotted with glowing crystals the same colour as its eyes. A wild mane of tendrils coiled behind it, the mouth cracked wide open in a maw fit for mangling anything caught in it.

Sithspawn, or something similar, an entity from the depths of bogan.

Vace led them passed the statue to the back of the chamber, where a wide, curving set of the stairs led them deeper into the temple. Green crystals lit the space with a polluting, corrosive feeling, amplifying the sensation of teeth at the neck.

Finn whispered, “stop.”

They did, freezing in place. Vace deactivated her field and turned around, prompting Rey and Finn to turn their fields off too. Finn was sweating and breathing hard, his hand tight on Vace’s shoulder.

Thankfully, the droids were no longer present, focused on the upper rooms and what artefacts were easier and quicker to reach.

Rey squeezed his shoulder and moved closer, doing her best to project a sense of calm. “We’re here, Finn, focus on us.”

Vace did the same, linking her arm with his and pressing a hand to his back. “Breathe, feel our presence in the Force, centre our purpose here in your thoughts, and _breathe._ ”

He nodded slowly, closing his eyes to do as they instructed.

* * *

The First Order being on Naboo made his blood boil. It was offensive in every respect, to the people of Naboo, to the Republic, to his family—he clenched his teeth.

“Relax,” Amilyn murmured.

Poe blinked, looking at her, but she continued observing the site with her binoculars. “You’re tense,” she said.

“I hate that they’re here.”

“So do I.”

“My mother helped save this planet before I was born. She flew with General Organa to stop Sidious from destroying the climate, and now they’re _here_ again.”

Amilyn looked at him with recognition in her eyes. “I remember hearing about that. It was a dead man’s switch, wasn’t it?”

A vindictive act of revenge in the event of his death. Palpatine had so many of those that the Rebel Alliance had to stamp out before his influence finally died too. Or so they thought.

Poe sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. They stopped him but here’s the First Order, digging up his secrets, hiding in plain sight—the same evil under a different name and a different Emperor.” He slowly shook his head, a cold, hard feeling tightening his stomach. “Too many people died to make it right. We can’t just let them come back like all that sacrifice meant nothing.”

Amilyn put a hand on his shoulder, her brows pinched together in sympathy. “I know. Many of those sacrifices were people I knew, I lost my sister to the fighting. I lost my parents to it. We _won’t_ let it be in vain.”

Through all her cheer and theatrics, sometimes he forgot Amilyn was as storied a soldier as Leia, but at that moment the pain, anger, and exhaustion from the many years of fighting to stop this kind of thing from ever happening again were plainly apparent.

Nodding slowly, Poe put his hand over Amilyn’s. “I know,” he murmured.

Amilyn nodded and pulled back, returning her attention to the site.

A drop of rain hit his ear, and Poe wiped it away, glancing at the sky. The lack of stars could have been the floodlights, but it seemed clouds were moving in. Rain could make it easier to move around without being spotted, but it would also make the terrain harder to navigate if or when they needed to escape.

He eyed the shuttles on the southern side of the site and nudged Amilyn with his elbow.

“Hey, think we could _requisition_ one of those?”

“Probably,” she said, squinting through her binoculars. “We could try to sabotage the others, but I worry if someone tries to take off before our friends are out.”

“Let’s get over there, at least. We don’t want to be too far away if we need to grab one.”

Amilyn nodded and put her binoculars away. “That’ll put us closer to their droid network control. Those units aren’t smart, they’re basic models for basic tasks, and they’re connected to a master control like the waste processing droids in Theed.”

“Well, wouldn’t it be a shame if these droids malfunctioned too?”

“It certainly would.”

* * *

It took longer than he would have liked to push out the devouring _malice_ in the air, but at no point did Vace or Rey pressure him. They remained calm and supportive, focused entirely on him, and that made all the difference.

Forgoing the stealth fields, they continued down the stairs, straining to hear anything beyond the distant clanking footsteps of machines, and even those faded the deeper they went. When they finally reached the bottom of the stairs, they all froze at the scene before them, and Finn’s stomach dropped.

A single chamber stood between them and the open door of the vault, empty save for the sickly green light and dozens of kneeling corpses.

Vace moved first, and Rey followed her. Finn swallowed hard and crept after them, approaching the bodies.

Most of the dead were Human, but some aliens found themselves among the unfortunate, even a few of the native Gungans. All were shackled, frozen on their knees in upright, strained positions, jawed stretched open in a fixed look of pain and terror. The same eerie green light made a home in their eyes, like smouldering embers It _almost_ looked like they were burned alive, their flesh was blackened and striated, like finely grooved charcoal, but hair remained, thin and greyed, and scraps of rotted clothing lay piled around them.

“What happened here?” Finn breathed, afraid that to speak any louder would somehow draw the attention of these ghoulish leftovers. He wondered if he could have done something like this if he had gone to Ilum, adapted to the Sith way of looking at the world and those outside the Frontier. The thought made his stomach lurch.

“A ritual,” Vace muttered. “Many Sith put guardians in places such as these, entities that could only be appeased with live offerings, especially that of sentient life.” She reached the vault door and paused, inspecting the glowing inscriptions that ran the length of its frame. “A few of them may have been force sensitive to some degree, whether they knew it or not, or it would have taken more death to open this particular gate.”

“Why do you say that?”

“People like us are a very satisfying meal for guardians like that.”

"Do you... can you tell what it was?"

Vace eyed the bodies, briefly, and said, "Some kind of spirit or incorporeal sithspawn. A physical creature, such as a Dashade or Terentatek, would leave a far more _visceral_ scene. They appear to have been _drained_."

“Do you think it’s still here?” asked Rey, warily scanning the room.

Vace shook her head. “It almost certainly would have attacked us by now. After being appeased, it either faded from our world, or it was contained and taken off-world, it depends what exactly it was.”

Finn couldn’t take his eyes off the dead. “Nothing could justify this,” he murmured.

Echoed voices floated out of the vault, and they froze again, looking at each other. Vace raised a finger to her lips and canted her head before she began moving into the vault. Rey followed, and Finn took up the rear, glancing over his shoulder at the bodies one last time.

They passed through a square antechamber split by a central column and into the vault itself, where the personal collection of the late Darth Sidious greeted them. Displays for every manner of relic and artefact one could think of filled the space, ancient tablets, scrolls made of leather and paper, analogue books, rows of data-storage devices through the millennia, and holocrons of every age between it all. Sith battle armour and weapons, old Force blades, early lightsaber designs when they were still attached to an external power source, and many, many more items Finn could scarcely begin to place.

The vault’s floor deepened towards the centre, lowering in platforms until it levelled out on a central dais—where Darth Ruin stood arguing with another robed man. A Demirian by the look of him, a saurian people that joined the First Order a decade ago, stocky and industrious, they made fine contributions to engineering and mining endeavours. The man himself had grey skin, green eyes, and a crest of red scales.

Rey and Vace found their own hiding spots and Finn ducked behind a stone display table, anxiety rising to a feverish pitch at the sight of Ruin.

“I had things under control!” the man snapped, gesturing emphatically. “We would have gained access soon enough. Moving this quickly has brought unnecessary attention to our project!”

A frigid sting cut the air, and the man gagged, reaching for his throat.

“I don’t care for you whining, Lord Ralveg,” Ruin said coldly.

Finn clenched his hands, swallowing hard.

Releasing Ralveg, Ruin stared down at him. “Give me the item Emperor Kaullost demanded,” he growled, head tilting. “Or should I inform him you were unfaithful? This is Her will, after all.”

Ralveg coughed and dug a flat metal case out of his robes. He handed it over with a mumble of appeasement, bowing low when Ruin took the case and tucked it away. “One voice,” Ruin seethed.

Ralveg straightened to meet his sightless glare and finished, “one purpose.”

A cold sweat broke out across Finn’s face, and the weight of the bead around his neck became unbearable. He breathed hard, tried to hold in his presence, but just as it was on Jakku it was too late—Ruin’s head snapped up. “Intruders!” he snarled, drawing his lightsaber and charging towards them.

Before Finn could do anything, Vace decoupled her lightsaber and threw one of her hilts to him. He caught it without thinking, and a wave of confidence and controlled fury washed through him, grounding him as the emotions attached to Vace’s weapon bled into him. He stood in time for Ralveg to bear down on him with a single, purple blade and ignited the weapon, meeting Ralveg’s blow.

The sharp, acidic punch of lethal intent almost unbalanced him, too used to the friendly competitiveness of Rey and Vace, but Finn focused inward and pushed Ralveg away.

Darth Ruin engaged his friends, the vented, molten blade all but _growling_ as it swung through the air, ruthlessly slashing through displays to get at them, carving away pedestals, gouging charred, ashen lines through the floor--embers laced the air around him with every swing. Vace’s form was perfect, as was Rey’s, but Ruin was Kaullost’s enforcer for a reason, and he easily held his own against the two of them. He fought like a Rancor in the shape of a man, with wild, overpowering blows and a starving predator's sense of mercy.

Finn parried the next strike and Ralveg hissed, lower jaw splitting to show off rows of backwards-facing needle teeth. Sparks of violet lightning raced down his arms and into his blade, and he lunged at Finn in a flurry of blows. The speed and strength of them pushed Finn back, and he struggled to keep up, avoiding most of the hits or parrying them when he couldn’t. At each meeting of their blades the lightning jumped, sending a cold, skittering pain through his arms that nearly made him drop his weapon. But he held on dearly, pushed through it, knowing that to falter for even one second would mean death.

Even if Ralveg wasn’t hitting him directly, he was losing ground, backing away from the attack just like he did when Rey used the ferocity form on him. Unlike then, neither he nor his opponent was limited in using the Force, but he grabbed that memory regardless. He pooled all his focus in tracking Ralveg’s weapon, drawing on the Force and shutting out the other duel in the room until all he knew was the danger in front of him.

At first, he slowed his retreat, he began to deflect more of the blows instead of parrying or outright avoiding them, unbalancing Ralveg as Finn began to use his momentum against him.

Furious, Ralveg snarled and pressed harder, but Finn found himself moving faster, instinctively, as if he could sense where Ralveg was going to be and intercepted the swing before it could gain traction.

Ralveg staggered, the hot sting of his rage curdling with doubt.

Finn lunged, advancing on the Sith with a flurry of strikes. Ralveg continued to charge his blade, but Finn had tuned out the pain of it, for now, and his assault sent Ralveg stumbling back to avoid a direct hit. Whoever he was in the hierarchy, he was in no way equal to Ruin.

With a final twisting blow, Finn whipped Ralveg’s weapon from his hands and threw him with a Force push into the wall. It was easier than he expected.

Ralveg hit the wall with a hard thump and fell to the ground on his hands and knees, groaning.

Finn approached with his blade up. “Surrender!”

Ralveg looked at him with absolute incredulity. “ _What?_ ”

Finn stood over him, weapon at the ready. “You can die here, or you can try to make this right! I didn’t know unity meant choking your underlings, did that feel right to _you_?”

Recognition entered Ralveg’s eyes, and a sliver of fear followed quickly. “Oh… I know you,” he murmured. “The Stormtrooper turned heretic. You made quite the spectacle.”

“We can’t keep going like this. This war will be built on a lie.”

“The Order is built on them, boy, you reveal _nothing_ to me."

That struck him cold, and on some level, he knew the upper tiers of government and the Sith especially knew the truth of things, but it still stung for Ralveg to not only confirm but expand it. A small and childish part of him had hoped it was isolated, that he wouldn't have to tear his home down to its foundations and break those too. But he was a soldier, and soldiers had no use for small and childish things when they got in the way of a mission. Finn clenched his teeth, glaring at the man. “What else is the Order lying about?” he asked, firm and grim, bracing for the answer.

Ralveg straightened with a tired laugh. “I can't blame you for not knowing. You ran, after all." He stared up at Finn with dark, resigned eyes. "A shrewd decision,” he said, smiling grimly.

An icy spiderweb of dread crawled up the back of Finn's skull. "Something _does_ happen to us on Ilum," he said softly. "What is it?"

The kneeling Sith Lord continued to smile, arms limp at his sides, his chest completely open for a killing blow. “There is no alternative for those of us who went to Ilum," he said, infuriatingly vague. "We are Her children more than any other. I cannot change that or my fate, so you had best cut me down now, for I can not tell you anything."

Finn slowly lowered his weapon. “Is that right? If you were really a fanatic, you’d still be trying to kill me. You’re hesitating.”

A flicker of fear made Ralveg cringe. He looked away. “My hands _drip_ with blood, boy. You must have seen the sacrifices on your way in. Strike me down; it’s _easier_ for both of us this way.”

In spite of the danger, Finn offered his hand. “No," he said resolutely. "The Frontier _never_ made it easy, why should this be any different? _Make up_ for it and help me stop this. You have that choice, you can make this better.”

Ralveg looked at his offered hand, brow knitting. He opened his mouth only to jolt, his face straining in a mix of pain and terror. Darkness bled from the corners of his eyes, covering them until all colour was entirely subsumed beneath a sea of endless black, and a terrible, frozen weight crushed all warmth around them. Two wavering pin pricks of silver light opened in the blackness, and when they fixed on Finn the terror of them dragged an unbidden sob from his throat.

The voice that spilt from Ralveg’s mouth was pain given form, the deep echoing of a _hundred_ voices, all like ground glass not to his hearing but to the whole of him. **“You cannot take them from me,”** it rasped, the torturous amalgam somehow coalescing into something vaguely feminine.

Something hot and wet ran from his ears.

Ralveg Force pulled his fallen weapon to him.

Finn barely had the presence of mind to jump back, breathless, struggling to lift his weapon and defend himself.

The Sith Lord stared at him for one awful second with those tenebrous eyes, mouth fixed in a look of primal, frozen terror, before he screamed, “no!" and pushed the hilt against his chest. Finn could only watch in stunned horror as the blade pierced straight through. Ralveg slumped to the floor, a dry death rattle escaping his throat. The blade extinguished, leaving nothing but wisps of smoke to rise from the blackened tunnel cut through his heart.

The weight lifted and his stomach heaved, forcing him to double over and empty it amongst the dust. As he stood catching his breath, Finn noticed what could only be drops of blood joining the puddle of bile at his feet. He wiped his ears and his fingers came away red.

The crack of lightsabers clashing, and the smash of priceless artefacts ripped Finn’s attention back to the rest of the room. He didn't have time to wonder if the others felt that, because Rey arced through the air and hit the wall next to him with a hard thump. She dropped to hands and knees, gasping for the breath violently shoved out of her lungs, but she kept a death grip on her weapon. She looked as worn out as he felt—the burn of Ralveg’s lightning rushed to the fore.

Wincing, Finn helped her to her feet. “You okay?”

“Perfect, you?” she responded, too quickly, and grimaced.

They shared a tired look and nodded. This wasn’t what either of them imagined for their first real duel.

Vace stood alone against Ruin, weathering his attacks with single-minded focus, but without Rey to harry him, he was getting worrying close to hitting her.

Looking up, Finn eyed the support structures of the vault’s ceiling and pointed them out to Rey. “We can bring this place down on his head, you with me?”

Rey nodded quickly, and they split, targeting two different metal beams in the ceiling. Hiding behind a display, Finn reached out with both hands, pulling on the middle of the beam through the Force. It didn’t give at first, but he closed his eyes and kept trying, keeping Vace’s life in mind as he pulled again. The metal groaned and buckled, and began to bend away from the ceiling, removing enough support to send a crack racing through the stone.

Opening his eyes, he let go of the beam and focused his attention on the break instead, slowly pulling it wider until the cracks began to multiply, putting pressure on the other beams. Stone chips and dust fell from the ceiling as the cracks spread like a spider web. It was almost ready to come down.

A loud metal groan sounded from the other side of the vault—Rey.

Finn raced the edge of the room, glancing at Vace and Ruin to see them still struggling over each other. Ruin couldn’t afford to pay him any mind.

Reaching Rey, Finn found her sweating profusely, her nose bleeding, and wearing an intense look of frustration and confusion on her face that left her eyes staring into the middle distance. Her beam had only _just_ started to buckle.

He grabbed her shoulder, which seemed to rattle her back to reality, “together!”

Rey nodded wordlessly, fighting to regain her breath. They reached up for the beam and pulled hard, wrenching it out of place. The ceiling split in a dozen directions, and the sound of rapidly cracking stone filled the chamber.

Finn spun around with Rey close behind and made for the entrance.

Ruin had Vace on the back foot, knocking her twenty feet away with a Force-empowered swing strong enough to crack the floor under them and cloud their immediate area with displaced dust. She twisted in the air with unexpected elegance and managed to land on her feet with a snarl.

Finn lifted a small tablet and threw it at Ruin, smashing it over his helmeted head and making him stumble. “Vace, the ceiling!” he called.

While Ruin was distracted, Vace hit him with a powerful Force push, sending him crashing into an armour display at the back of the chamber. She turned and ran towards them at the entrance, and her eyes flicked to a point above it. She threw her lightsaber at a beam just above the door to weaken the metal and pulled one-handed to break it out of place, catching her lightsaber in the other just in time to make it out. The chamber rumbled violently, chunks of ceiling crashing to the floor and sending bits of brickwork and dust flying. “Go!” she yelled.

They sprinted out of the antechamber and out towards the stairs, climbing them as quickly as they could.

Their commlinks beeped, opening to the surface.

“Hey, you guys better be alive!” said Poe, backed by the sound of heavy rain and blaster fire.

Finn responded first. “We are! We found Ruin and another Sith in the vault. He spotted us. We had to fight them.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. We collapsed the ceiling. What’s happening up there?”

“Site went on high alert, started mobilising to send people into the temple. Amilyn made the droids go haywire to buy us time, and we snuck aboard one of the shuttles, we’re holding it for now, but you guys have to get up here, _now._ ”

Spurred on with the urgency in Poe’s voice, they raced up the stairs, lungs burning and muscles crying out for relief by the time they reached the top level. They rushed through the chamber, passing the remains of droids who destroyed each other, and out into the rain-slicked encampment.

Dead Stormtroopers and scrapped droids lay everywhere, but sounds of a shootout drew them to the transports on the southern end of the camp. Eight troopers surrounded the boarding ramp, with those who had tried to charge inside lying dead at the bottom.

Vace leapt, crashing amidst their backline and sending out a wave of golden energy that knocked the troopers down. “Get on!” she barked. Finn hurried onto the shuttle and Rey was close behind, quickly followed by Vace. She hit the ramp access panel, closing it.

Amilyn emerged from behind a stack of artefact crates with her blaster in hand, a huge grin on her face and rain-slick hair plastered to her brow. “I knew you’d make it!” she said brightly before looking over her shoulder to call out, “Take us away, Commander Dameron!”

“Copy that!” he called back, leaning into view from the cockpit with a pleased smirk.

The shuttle lurched into the air, and Finn staggered, sliding down against the cabin wall until he could sit. The adrenaline finally wore off, and his limbs felt like they were made of lead.

Rey chose to lie flat on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling with her chin stained red, and Vace eased down into a recovery position, head hanging, ears folded back.

Hopefully, a long rest awaited them in Theed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know :3
> 
> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	10. From Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Bombing and mass death.

Mercifully, Theed and the Crown were quick to act. Royal Guard forces seized the Coriss Security Bureau, detaining most of its officers in the process. Some managed to flee into the wilderness or aboard shuttles, but the former would almost certainly be found by morning. By the time a contingent of soldiers arrived at Soren’s Fall the First Order’s forces had fled the area, leaving behind more than enough evidence to convince the Crown that the First Order had indeed been operating on Naboo.

With their part done, the crew gratefully retired to Amilyn’s room for some well-earned rest.

Poe flopped on one of the sofas and fell asleep almost immediately, no doubt used to grabbing sleep whenever and wherever he could. Amilyn sent a report to Leia before taking the other sofa, similarly falling asleep not long after settling down.

Rey ducked into the refresher to wash her face, cleaning the blood from her mouth and chin.

Finn still wasn't sure what to make of that. He'd wiped the blood from his ears in the shuttle, feverishly, unsettled by what prompted it. But he couldn't recall any time he saw an adept get a _nosebleed_ from exerting themselves, and concluded it wasn't normal by the nervous glint in Vace's eyes as Rey emerged.

She just smiled, bemused, as if nothing was out of place.

“You both did well,” said Vace, her tone measured.

Finn didn’t know how to feel about what happened in the vault, if he could have helped Ralveg somehow—watching the man fight his own body put a cold, hollow feeling in Finn’s. And that _thing_ that took control of him. It made his stomach feel greasy and cold, a basket of eels ready to surge up his throat in a desperate bid for freedom.

If they weren't going to bring it up, he wouldn't force himself to talk about it. Not yet.

He shook it off and shared an awkward smile with Rey. He could feel something sour around her like she didn’t quite believe Vace, but she brightened when their eyes met.

“You were amazing, Finn,” she said, and it seemed genuine much to his relief.

“Thanks, but I wasn’t the one fighting Ruin. He’s something else.”

“That doesn’t mean you did any less. Your quick thinking got us out of there alive, and you faced a Sith all on your own, I was just helping mama.”

Vace put a hand on their shoulders. “You _both_ exceeded my expectations,” she said firmly, before looking at Finn with a serious expression. “When we return to D’Qar, we will make your lightsaber. You are going to need it.”

He started, bracing as he expected Rey to protest his quick advancement after waiting so long for her own weapon—but she didn’t. She looked surprised for a moment, only to grin at him. “You’re… happy?” he asked.

“Why not? You earned it, you faced down someone trying to kill you, you saved our lives—I don’t see a reason not to be. Besides, this means we can use our lightsabers when we practice now.”

“I…guess it does, yeah. Thanks.”

* * *

Ruin snarled and heaved against the last bit of debris blocking his way, shattering the stone into a dozen pieces and crawling his way through the hole it left behind. He hauled his body into the antechamber, aching, bruised, ribs broken and blood in his mouth, and yet he lived. The collapse knocked him out for a time, but the Dark Mother sustained him amidst the rubble, shielding him from the worst of it.

He shuddered and told himself it was the pain.

Rising to his full height and coated in dust, Ruin steadily made his way out of the temple depths, contemplating his next steps.

Emperor Kaullost was right. He sensed it during the duel, a clever trick but one that wouldn’t save them in the end.

To find Dorne with them was galling but not unexpected. The Cathar threw him a lightsaber, and he wielded it well, well enough to best a Sith Lord. She was training him. With time Dorne would be an incredible warrior, but he should have been theirs, he belonged to the First Order. Another thing Ruin would set right, eventually. He should have put Dorne on a shuttle immediately.

Growling curses under his breath, he focused on getting out of the temple, sweat pouring down his face as his ribs protested with ragged agony.

The light of dawn greeted him as he limped outside to find the encampment empty of all First Order personnel, with a handful of Naboo soldiers picking over the place like vermin. Ruin wasted no time in drawing his weapon and grabbing one of the soldiers through the Force, crushing their throat in the same motion. The others were too slow to react, they could only scream as he fell on them in a rush of violence, cutting through limbs and necks until all was silent again.

Exhaling slowly, Ruin stalked to his shuttle and boarded. He fired up the engines and lifted off, opening an encrypted channel to the Emperor as he ascended.

“Emperor Kaullost,” he said, grating out the words through clenched teeth as copper threatened the back of his throat. “I have the item you requested.”

“Good,” Snoke rasped. “Awaken it as you did the vault. When you have the opening, use it to break the girl, and bring her to me.”

“What of Naboo?”

“The fleet has arrived and will soon deliver judgement. As long as the girl survives, I would have you remind Naboo of the price of betrayal. They were deeply entwined with the collaborators who _murdered_ our forefather. Bring them _ruin_.”

* * *

Rey’s back was a patchwork of bruising when she woke, stiff, sore, and blinking as she realised Amilyn was standing over her, hand outstretched to wake her up.

“She lives!” said Amilyn theatrically, pulling away. “How are you feeling?”

“Great,” she groaned, wincing as pushed herself out of bed. Pain raced up her back, and she sucked air through her teeth, forcing a stiff grin. “I feel great.”

The smell of hot, fresh food hit her, and she realised the rest of the crew were sitting at the table with a breakfast spread. It must have only just arrived because it was mostly untouched save for the caf Finn and Poe were drinking.

None of them had really taken the time to wash up after the eventful night and crashed in their clothes. Maybe after food…

“You _look_ like you feel great,” said Poe, clearly not believing her for a second.

Amilyn rolled her eyes and pulled out a chair, which Rey gratefully took. “Now that we’re all awake,” Amilyn said, clapping her hands together and smiling, “you’ll be pleased to know the rogue officers have been rounded up, even the ones who tried to flee off-world. Naboo’s Starfighter corps was able to mobilise a response quickly enough to catch them.”

Vace wordlessly passed some servings to her, and Rey murmured a quiet thank you. She wolfed a small fruit pastry, savouring the flaky texture and burst of tart sweetness.

“What now?” asked Finn.

A flash hit the corner of her eye, and Vace stiffened, the only one of them actually facing the balcony.

“Get down!” Vace snarled, and moved as a blur, flipping the table onto its side like a shield.

Rey grabbed Amilyn’s shoulder and pulled her down with Poe and Finn, ducking behind the table just in time for the glass door and floor-length windows to explode into the room in a blizzard of razors, _thunking_ into the table all at once and perforating everything else in the room. The wave of noise that came with it nearly deafened them, and Vace grunted, braced against the table. A ripple in the Force indicated why the it didn’t just fly into them. A little stasis to freeze it in place right as the wave hit.

Rey instinctively reached for her lightsaber, looking at everyone else. They seemed just as shocked and out of sorts, eyes wide.

Vace slowly stood up, and Rey offered her hand to Amilyn. “Thank you,” she muttered, rubbing her ear as they stood. Rey was about to say it was no problem, but her eyes flicked to the city, and the words died in her throat.

Dozens of alarms began to filter in from the surrounding buildings and trashed speeders tossed like flimsi, and a gargantuan pillar of smoke climbed in the distance, belching darker shades of soot and ash by the second.

Forgetting the pain, Rey hurried over the broken glass to look at the sky and confirm her suspicions. High above Theed a grey, dagger-shaped capital ship hovered, hazy at its height in the atmosphere despite the clear morning sun but unmistakable as a Star Destroyer.

The others quickly joined her, and a look of horror flashed across Finn’s face. “Ruin,” he whispered.

A blue light shined from the Finalizer’s underbelly and rocketed down, slamming into another part of the city and throwing up a towering cloud of smoke and debris.

Rey grabbed Finn and Amilyn next to her and wheeled them around. “We need to get to the ship!” The shockwave hit a few seconds later, barely missing them as it hit the hotel from a different angle, rattling the building.

Retrieving everything they owned, the crew quickly exited the room and made for the stairs, with Vace leading and Rey bringing up the rear to make sure none of them fell behind.

Poe hoisted BB-8 over his head on the way down rather than let the droid tumble.

“Planetary Defence Alert: Orbital bombardment detected over Theed!” A stern mechanical voice issued forth from BB-8’s speaker, a blue light blinking on his head. “Citizens are advised to go to ground!”

The sound of a screaming child hit her ears, and Rey stalled at the top of the stairs, head whipping in its direction. It came from the side of the building that was just hit by a shockwave. Another wail and she made out what it was saying.

“Mom!”

Her legs moved before she could think. She raced to the end of the hall and found the door where the screams were clearest. Without a key to open it, Rey quickly pulled the cover off the keypad, revealing the wires beneath. It was a hotel room, not a criminal penthouse or planetary treasury, so it wasn’t complicated to get the door open. Cut a couple of wires, disengage the lock, and pull the manual handle meant for emergencies.

Almost the entire wall to her left was windows for a balcony and glass was everywhere, embedded in the opposite wall, the furniture, the floor, and the body of a middle-aged Tholothian woman in an elegant blue robe, lying in a halo of her own blood. A young girl crouched over the body in a blood-stained green dress, shaking the woman’s shoulder and crying for her to get up.

Rey’s throat constricted like it meant to choke her and she quickly walked up to the child and her dead mother. The girl looked up at her with wet, frightened eyes, and Rey knelt. “I’m sorry, but your mother isn’t going to get up,” she said gently.

The girl looked down with fresh tears, fingers bunched in her mother’s clothes. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old, a spitting image of her mother with cool, dark brown skin, purple eyes, and a red skull cap and tendrils.

Judging by the glass in the mother’s back, it looked every bit like she had shielded her daughter from the blast.

A distant blast sent up a plume of smoke and fire, but not from a bomb, it looked more like a ruptured feeder pipe. Rey’s blood began to boil, wondering how many families were being shattered by Ruin’s violence. “Is your mother the only one with you?” she asked with forced calm.

The girl nodded, wide-eyed, and Rey held out her hand. “I’m so sorry, but you can’t stay here, it’s too dangerous. Come with me,” she said, putting on as reassuring a smile as she could muster, “I'll take you somewhere safe, I promise.”

For a moment she expected the child to refuse, too distraught and frightened to listen, and Rey could hardly blame her for being so. But the girl slowly let go and unfastened a locket from her mother’s neck, slipping it on. Fresh tears slipped down her cheeks, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Who are you?” she whimpered.

“I’m Rey, I'm with the Coalition, what’s _your_ name?”

“Cilia. Wh-where are you taking me? What’s going to happen to my mom?”

“Somewhere safe, and… and she’ll stay here. She protected you, right?”

Cilia nodded, her face contorting in despair, and Rey gently held her by the shoulders. “She wanted you to be safe, and right now that means you have to leave her behind, I’m sorry.” A tangle of thorns lodged in Rey’s throat, and she struggled to clear it, blinking tears from her eyes as she fought to keep those words from touching her memories of Sulia.

She never wanted to do what she was asking of Cilia.

No child did.

The girl slowly nodded, unable to speak.

Rey glanced around the room. “Okay, Cilia. Does your mother have a holocomm?”

Once it was pointed out to her, Rey picked it up and took the girl’s hand, leading her out of the room. If they reached safety, perhaps the holocomm could be used to contact family or friends, people Cilia knew and could be taken in by. But they had to get off Naboo first, and if Ruin wanted to wipe them out he was in a perfect position to do so, yet the bombs fell on the city outskirts, forming a ring of destruction but avoiding the dense centre.

She wondered if Ruin knew exactly where they were and a chill swept through her, urging her to pick up Cilia and move faster. She made it half-way down the stairs before Vace almost barrelled into her, eyes wild and hard.

Words caught in her throat.

Vace took one look at the girl in her arms and about-faced, snarling, “come on!”

Rey followed her down to find the others waiting, and they broke into a run, emerging just in time for three different bombs to hit the city. The bone-shaking shockwaves that came with them nearly flattened the group, bellowing like titanic monsters loud enough to make the ears bleed. Cilia shrieked in fright and several air vehicles trying to escape found themselves smashed out of the sky, battered like leaves in a hurricane. A shuttle glanced off the building above them, barely missing them with a shower of rubble that caused Rey to reflexively put her hand on Cilia’s head.

Terror soured the air with screams and ripples in the Force alike, and Rey knew the death toll would be ghastly, she could feel it already and so could Finn, keenly. He stumbled, clutching his chest, and Poe grabbed him, helping him run without a moment’s hesitation.

“Where’s the RSF?” Poe growled, shooting a glare at the Finalizer. It was a good question; the Royal Security Forces should have launched fighters by now.

Amilyn answered grimly, keeping her eyes on the street. “He probably targeted their hangars first.”

The spaceport loomed into view, with dozens if not hundreds of people storming the steps, but the crew managed to avoid getting knocked over in the mad rush of bodies. Shouting echoed off the walls inside, cries of fear, desperate pleading for passage on a ship, _any_ ship, and throughout it all the nervous anger of port security fighting to keep people calm. Another distant explosion sent a ripple of frightened yelps through the crowd.

Cilia’s arms tightened around her neck, and Rey rubbed her back. “It’ll be okay,” she murmured, half to herself.

Once they were away from the crowd and out of the main concourse, Finn looked back the way they came. “What about all those people?”

Vace half-turned, ears folding with her frown as her eyes flicked from Finn to the desperate people arguing with security and pilots alike. “We can’t fit all of them,” she said sternly, “and there’s no telling when Ruin will tire of toying with the city and end it. We must leave _now_.”

Rey wheeled around, staring down the hall to the concourse. Her heart pounded like a hammer against her ribs, threatening to break free, the rushing of blood in her ears partnered with a tremor in her hands she suppressed just enough to keep a secure hold on the frightened girl in her arms.

They couldn't just run.

No. She refused to just run and not even try, to just leave these people like they left the scavengers of Niima. She fixed Vace with a pleading look, her voice coming out tight, almost cracking. "Mama, we can help, we have to. We can't just _run_ again."

Vace's eyes burned, her upper body tense like a spring, ears flattened. She knew as well as Rey did that leaving now would betray their code again. "Mama, _please_ ," Rey urged.

A bomb dropped close enough that the reinforced structure of the spaceport shook. It felt like Rey’s bones rattled and the lights flickered overhead, sparks spraying from a wall-mounted power converter burning out only ten feet away from them. Cilia whimpered and a chorus of startled screams echoed down the hall.

Raking a hand through her hair, Vace snarled a string of Catharese curses. "The Truth Seeker was built to accommodate a maximum crew of seven, but it could _ferry_ an extra twenty people. There are more than twenty people back there. Are you prepared to look them in the eyes and choose who remains behind?"

The question filled her with a cold, heavy dread but Rey steeled herself against it. "Yes," she said flatly.

She nearly jumped when Amilyn put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll help," she said, shooting a meaningful look at Poe and Finn, who both nodded.

Vace growled, "then _hurry_ , I will get the ship ready." She turned and made her way to the hangar, while the rest of them turned back to the concourse.

People were still franticly searching for a way out, some had broken off, found their passage off-world, but there were still at least a hundred people desperate for safety, arguing with Starport staff and security.

Amilyn approached one of the beleaguered Security officers, quietly communicating something that brought a look of relief and hope to his face. He used his earpiece to communicate with the other Starport officers and they quickly coordinated to bring to everyone's attention that there was a ship willing to take twenty more people. Murmurs about the 'Coalition' scattered through the crowd, perhaps it brought them some reassurance.

It seemed Amilyn was experienced with such dire situations and Rey was thankful for that, swallowing hard as hopeful eyes fell on them. "As you've heard our ship can only handle twenty more people," Amilyn said loudly, her voice apologetic but strong. "If there are any families with children still in need of transport, please come forward!"

A few did, a Human family of two fathers and a daughter that couldn't be more than five, a Pantoran woman with twin boys who looked Cilia's age, and a Twi'lek woman came forward with a young teenager of indeterminate gender. Each parent was grim-faced, doing their best to comfort their children and convince them everything would be okay.

Rey waved them through and Amilyn addressed the crowd again. "If you are under thirty standard years, or considered a young adult by your species, come forward!"

More people stepped out of the crowd, a motley collection of thirteen travellers from different species, one more than they could take. The last person to emerge, a young Nautolan man with sky-blue skin, froze upon realising how many of them there were. A split-second of despair crossed his face, and he closed his eyes, expression twisting into something painful, before he resolutely took a step back into line with the crowd.

The words left Rey's mouth before she could swallow them, "I'm sorry."

The Nautolan looked up as if he'd been jabbed with a needle, tears spilling from his big black eyes and he coughed, quickly wiping them.

"It's okay," he said hoarsely, forcing a grin, "I've always had bad luck. Just promise you'll get them back for this, yeah?"

"We will."

Another bomb fell, rattling the building like a giant taking a swing at the foundations. They were out of time. "This way!" said Finn, leading everyone to the hangar.

Her eyes stung, and Rey swallowed a sob of relief as they reached the Truth Seeker, engines roaring. They boarded quickly, settling everyone in the lounge, galley, and cargo hold, before making their way to the bridge.

Vace looked at her, a hard look of worry more than genuine anger, but said nothing.

Poe jumped into the co-pilot seat and they lifted off, rising from the starport and above Theed’s fiery skyline. Smoke filled the air in great columns, the fire was everywhere and spreading faster by the second, trapping Theed’s citizens in a circle of death.

Finn leaned against the back wall, arms tight around his waist, ashen-faced and grimacing.

Amilyn wore the dark and tired look of someone too familiar with the ghoulish scene before them, her hands bunched tightly in the legs of her coveralls.

Rey couldn’t take her eyes off the cityscape until Vace pointed them at the stars and gunned it. The smoke-filled morning sky bled away into star-speckled darkness.

A blue light flashed on the holo—they were being haled.

Ruin’s masked figure materialised from the projector, standing with his arms held behind his back and feet planted wide, chin held high.

Poe cringed and tried to mask it, rolling his shoulders.

Rey bared her teeth. “Monster!”

“Yes, I thought that might encourage you to leave. I have business to settle with the people of Naboo, and my master would be furious if I robbed him of the chance to gut you himself, Vace Vardenox.”

The name prickled her neck, tugging at the back of her thoughts like a child on their mother’s sleeve. Rey knew it, but from where she couldn’t tell, perhaps it was her mama’s old name from before she married Sulia, and Rey just didn’t remember. She scowled and shook the thought away; this wasn’t the time to get distracted.

Vace’s entire upper body tensed as she regarded the mass-murderer, baring her clenched teeth. “If he wants that, he should come and get me _himself_ ,” she growled.

Ruin tilted his head. “He won’t need to. Surrender or I will finish what I started here.”

The air left the bridge. Everyone shared nervous, wide-eyed looks, the chaos of Theed too fresh, the lives planetside and the lives aboard looming over them. Everyone except for Vace, and Rey pursed her lips. She knew what her mama’s answer would be.

Vace began inputting coordinates.

Poe looked at her, eyes burning. “What are you doing?”

She shut off the holocall, continuing the input. Poe asked her again, louder, “what are you doing, Vace?”

Vace hissed, folding her ears. “Do you believe him merciful enough to spare Naboo further death once he has us? Is he an _honourable_ _man_? Do you trust him with our _passengers_?”

“No, but—!”

“But _what_? We try to disable a Star Destroyer alone and get ourselves and these people killed? We pretend to turn ourselves over and fight _thousands_ of soldiers on the inside? There is nothing else we can do!”

Poe looked like he wanted to fight her. It was a hopeless situation, and the desire to do something burned in Rey’s chest too. But they were alone, too few, and too weak to do anything but die throwing themselves against a much greater foe. They barely escaped a confrontation with Ruin when he _didn’t_ have a capital ship on hand—now wasn’t the time for heroics. Not when they already had people to safeguard.

Slumping in his seat, Poe deflated and looked away, a hand over his eyes.

Input finished, Vace activated the hyperdrive, and the stars of Naboo streaked into oblivion.

* * *

On the dark bridge of the Finalizer, Ruin narrowed his eyes as the heretic’s ship vanished into hyperspace. Its vector was almost certainly a feint so they could safely return to their true destination.

“My Lord, the remains of Naboo’s starfighter corps is on the approach. What are your orders?” asked a technician somewhere below him.

“Ready the Javelins,” he said, “and target their population centres.”

Activating an open channel, Ruin took a deep breath and spoke with cold authority. “Naboo paints itself a peaceful, artistic jewel in the Republic’s crown, an image they upheld even after they helped _murder_ our great founder, a man born of _their_ world. They should feel so honoured! Emperor Palpatine’s _only_ wants were to bring order and purpose to a galaxy lacking in either, and that meant dismantling the corrupt systems that came before and the apathetic bureaucracy that kept them in place! These heretical leeches thought of no one but themselves when they supported the Rebel Alliance! When they aided the _Jedi_ Skywalker and his crusade against our Dark Mother! So look to Naboo, in all its heathenry, its decadent hypocrisy and bear witness to Her judgement!”

He looked over his shoulder at an officer standing ready at Orbital Weapons Control, a bronze-scaled Ssi-ruu female. She straightened at the look and moved her clawed hand to the launch key.

“Ready, My Lord,” she hissed, nasal scent-tongues flicking out to test the rising excitement in the air.

He nodded, and the Javelins launched, a battery of six rockets tipped with high-yield nuclear bombs. They burned a brilliant green and scattered as they streaked into the atmosphere, seeking out their targets across the planet. Theed was the first hit, a five-mile radius of absolute annihilation wiping it and everything around it off the map in a fraction of a second.

Moenia, Keren, Harte Secur, Spinnaker, and Jan-gwa all suffered the same fate, cleansed by the Mother’s rage, a pyre of the Republic’s sins. The people within the initial fireball wouldn’t even have a moment to realise what was happening, but instantaneous _evaporation_ was better than what those on the outskirts would suffer. A split second of blinding light before they immolated, another second before they were thrown like a grain of sand in a tornado from the shockwave, everything around them catching fire in a great conflagration eighty miles across. The fires would rage on unchallenged, cities, towns, and wilderness all burning to choke Naboo’s atmosphere in a shroud of radioactive soot and ash.

Ruin eyed the approach of RSF fighters and turned away from the bridge viewers. “Let the heretics wallow in their consequences,” he growled, “we’re leaving.”

* * *

The crew slowly separated throughout the ship, shell-shocked, stricken, and quiet, deathly quiet.

Vace was a wall of stoicism, leaving the bridge first and taking Rey with her to check on the Tholothian girl.

Amilyn went to check on the evacuees, wearing a well-practiced look of reassurance.

Seeing and _hearing_ Ruin again, even as a small holo-projection—well, it was the perfect end to a horrific encounter. Poe swallowed hard against the bile in his throat, holding the refresher sink as cold sweat ran down his face. He ran the cold water to wash it off, pushing wet hands through his hair and down his neck, wiping away some of the sweat and grime. He was pale, too much white in his eyes. He rubbed his face and breathed deeply, fighting the urge to scream.

The nausea slowly ebbed, and he turned the water off, dried his face, and left the refresher.

He found Finn outside, slowly wringing his hands.

“Sorry, didn’t know you were waiting,” he muttered, turning to leave.

“I wasn’t,” Finn said quickly, touching his arm. Poe stopped and turned to face him, trying to muster the energy for a smile but failing, he couldn’t even force one.

A troubled frown dominated Finn’s face, and he couldn’t seem to hold Poe’s stare, looking everywhere but him. “I… I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do this, Ruin did.”

“I know that, but you’re hurting, and you’re a good person, and I don’t know what else to say. I really wish I knew what to say. I hate this. I hate _him_ , I wish I had done something sooner, I wish I could have stopped him.”

Poe slowly shook his head and pulled Finn into a hug, burying his face in Finn’s shoulder. Finn froze, hesitating for a moment only to wrap his arms around Poe with almost enough strength to press the air from his lungs. Somehow it managed to feel gentle too, the kind of protective embrace he hadn’t felt in a long time, and in the aftermath of Ruin’s violence and cruelty, it was exactly what Poe needed.

* * *

Phasma stepped onto the bridge of the Harbinger to an atmosphere of barely restrained rapture. It was the same on almost every deck of the Star Destroyer, a fervent bloodlust permeated the air now that the moment of divine judgement was at hand. She tuned it out, cold to the jubilation others felt—she _should_ have been pleased. She _should_ be proud to see this operation to fruition.

At the apex of the bridge stood Supreme Commander Armitage Hux, hands behind his back and framed by the reflective glow of Hosnian spinning slowly in the ether. Starfighters battled outside, the New Republic’s paltry defence fleet exploding one after another, unprepared to face the First Order’s full might bearing down on them, flitting to and fro like insects from a ravaged hive, frantic and desperate.

She crossed the bridge and stopped at Armitage’s side, observing the Starfighters. Despite the resistance, the First Order’s blockade was beginning, and no one would be able to leave the planet without being destroyed.

“All the struggle and sacrifice has finally paid off,” said Armitage, smiling coolly. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, it has,” she answered flatly.

He didn’t take notice of her tone, smirking as an X-Wing exploded outside, disparate parts spiralling off in different directions. “I hope that bastard can see us now,” Armitage growled.

Brendol Hux’s bloody face flashed through her mind, a pitiful bully of a man with little regard for anyone he deemed below him, whether it was kitchen staff or his own illegitimate children. If it wasn’t for Grand Admiral Sloane pulling rank on the detestable thug, Phasma doubted Armitage would have lived to see adulthood. Brendol should have learned to control himself if he didn’t want a ‘bastard’ staining his reputation.

Bloodlust marked a lack of discipline, but his was a life she thoroughly enjoyed snuffing out, showing the old general the dignity he earned by beating him to death with her fists and throwing the body down a garbage chute where it belonged.

The look on Armitage’s face when she brought him Brendol’s insignia was permanently burned into her memory, pleasure at the news tempered by bitterness and quiet grief. Even a hated parent was grieved if only for the loss of reconciliation, the chance that they could apologise and atone for the pain inflicted, but Armitage had long since made his peace with the decision to have his own flesh and blood assassinated.

It was their little secret.

Armitage looked at her, brow arched. “Captain?”

She blinked and realised he had been talking. “Apologies, Commander, I was contemplating the battle ahead.”

He snorted, watching as the Republic’s rapidly dwindling Starfighters were hunted down to the last. “There will be no _battle_ here, only _judgement_ ,” he crowed. He looked at her again, his expression turning thoughtful. “Be honest, Phasma, this is about the traitor, Dorne. Don’t worry, he’ll be hunted down soon enough, and you’ll get the honours of executing him yourself.”

Phasma’s hands tightened on her rifle, and she forced herself to unclench her jaw. “I’m focusing on the operation, not that treacherous worm,” she said with forced calm. Part of her felt like screaming. She crushed it. There was no space for disloyalty in the First Order, its people came before anything else.

Even family.

She violently pushed the thought out of her mind. She was Dorne’s mentor, perhaps from childhood, but that was all, and now he was a traitor.

Aware of the growing silence, Phasma gestured at the planet, speaking in clipped tones. "All ground teams have reported in. Have we heard from the Knights?”

Armitage rolled his eyes, sneering at the Knights’ proximity to Ruin. “Yes, all are accounted for.”

“Supreme Commander! The fleet is in place, and the blockade is complete!” announced a technician off to their left.

Armitage grinned, shooting Phasma a triumphant look. “Excellent! Open a channel to the Senate, and relay it through the holonet. I want _every_ Republic world to see this.”

Phasma stepped away to give Armitage the spotlight. It was his moment more than anything, proving once and for all that he was his father’s better by delivering a more vicious blow to the Republic than Brendol ever did. She doubted that need would ever fade, but it served the First Order, for now. She turned away to a comm terminal and opened a live feed to the Senate. They were in session, just as expected, a grand circular room of many tiered platforms for hundreds of politicians from hundreds of worlds. The senate halls were made to mimic that of Coruscant, either out of tradition or respect, it would matter little soon enough.

She noted the building was in lockdown, it was constructed to withstand a bombardment, which was why they weren’t bothering with one.

“It’s open, sir,” said a comms technician.

Armitage lifted his chin, smiling coolly as he addressed the Senate. “Ah, the New Republic in action, a gathering of hypocritical and self-serving bureaucrats, hungry for a return to a time when they could grow apathetic to the needs of their citizenry. You murdered our forebears, drove us into the dark unknown, but unlike you, we evolved. We _adapted_ , we _learned_ from our mistakes and grew stronger for it. Where you leave the vulnerable and destitute to flounder on their own because of the _cost,_ we lift them up! We house, feed, and train them because their value is wasted in the gutter! Where you allow vices to grow out of control and even profit from it, we do not tolerate such pointless self-destruction! To encourage such is to shirk responsibility! You leave your people without purpose, constantly chasing after money, enough to eat, enough for shelter, enough to _live!_ Our people are _one_ , united in purpose, in voice, in the sheltering void of our great Dark Mother!”

A chilling, exuberant bloodthirst burst through as he grinned, gesturing for the instruments of Savage Dawn to be activated. A thick, green vapour began to flood the senate chambers from every available vent, causing an immediate panic. Those it reached first began to choke, grabbing their throats, coughing and sputtering, inhaling more and more of it with every gasp.

Spreading his arms, a manic glint in his eyes, Armitage watched the senators struggle to breathe with barely restrained laughter. “So bear witness to the last days of the Republic! Bear witness as we _finish_ what our forefathers started! Bear witness to the Savage Dawn!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, if you're enjoying this please consider leaving a comment to let me know.
> 
> As an aside, want to know something horrifying about Kylo channelling his inner Darth Malak? That 5-mile radius of death and the 80-mile diameter of immediate burning is based on the calculated blast of a real nuclear bomb design that was thankfully never built.
> 
> Dismantle all nuclear weapons.
> 
> Kind of wondering if the rating should be M instead of T.


	11. Outbreak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry to have to do this but I've been working hard on an original story which takes precedent. This means the fic is paused for now and I will update it when I'm in a position to do so.

The fifteen hours back to D’Qar passed without incident, sequestered in the relative safety of hyperspace. Rey hardly slept and she doubted the rest of the crew or their impromptu passengers fared much better. But it wasn't their escape her mind revisited over and over again, it was the temple.

It shouldn't have been difficult to bend that beam unassisted. Instead it felt as if her connecting to the Force was what buckled, bowing out of shape only to snap against her, delivering a stinting, haptic jolt that sent the image of golden lightning through her mind like a spiderweb. Then her nose started bleeding and she almost felt concussed, vision doubling, balance going. She was lucky it cleared before Finn reached her.

Thinking about it left her frustrated and confused, and she did her best to distract herself while everyone else was at rest by tinkering in the workshop until they finally arrived at D'Qar.

Disembarking from the Truth Seeker, Poe flagged down an officer to escort the civilians up to Haven’s social office and to specifically look out for Cilia.

“Try and get her in contact with any surviving family,” said Poe, grim-faced but holding himself tall.

“Of course,” said the officer, a pale-furred male cathar who’s uniform read ‘Lt. Vodal Uhris.’ He offered the girl an understanding and gentle smile, but it seemed forced, soured by a nervous energy. “Let’s get you home, yeah?”

“Is something wrong?” asked Finn, brows pinched.

Vodal’s ears folded back and he grimaced. “Yes,” he said quietly, “but you should talk to the general for that.” He returned his attention to the child, doing a better job of hiding whatever was bothering him.

Cilia tightened her grip on Rey’s hand.

“It’s okay,” she said, kneeling down to Cilia’s height with an encouraging smile. “You’re safe here, and you’ll be home in no time.” She looked at Vodal, “won’t she?”

He nodded, “as quickly as possible, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” Cilia whispered, her voice small and brittle, her eyes downcast. Rey wished she could say something that would erase the last 24 hours from the girl’s memory, so she wouldn’t have to live with the image of her dead mother, shredded by broken glass and lying in a pool of blood. But there was nothing she could say, so Rey simply pressed the dead mother’s holocomm into her hand before the girl left with Vodal and the rest of the civilians.

Poe sighed and gestured to follow him. “Come on.”

The atmosphere had changed, it was still busy but the mood had darkened considerably. People weren’t smiling nearly as much, no longer comfortable and at ease with their duties, there was a nervous fervour to it all.

The crew picked up their pace until they reached the command centre at a quick jog. It was busier, more people at the comms, taking down messages, sending new orders, and Leia stood leaning over the command table, brow furrowed. She looked up at their approach and her expression softened when she noticed Amilyn, who hurried to embrace her in a fierce hug. Leia's hand went to the back of her head in a cradling, affectionate touch.

“Well, that’s _one_ thing off my mind,” Leia said darkly as they parted, tucking a loose strand of hair behind Amilyn’s ear. “You always were good at escapes.”

“That one was a little too close,” said Amilyn, clearing her throat. She forced a smile and Leia shook her head, gently pulling Amilyn down to kiss her brow. She relaxed a little, and squeezed Leia’s hand before she stepped away, taking an interest in the information on the command table.

Leia turned her attention back to the crew. “What happened?”

Poe rattled off the details of their mission from beginning to end, including their explosive departure from the planet and rescue of civilians. It felt like a dead weight hung in the air until Poe asked, “what?”

Leia glanced at each of them before saying in a grave voice, “he dropped nuclear bombs on Naboo. The Crown is gone, along with Theed and five other cities.”

A small, horrified cry escaped Amilyn, who tried and failed to stifle it by covering her mouth with both hands. She stared at Leia wide-eyed and Leia slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Lyn,” she said gently.

It felt like Rey’s entire stomach filled with ice and she tried to remember how to breathe, tried _not_ to picture Theed getting obliterated from existence or all the people who were trapped when they left. It didn’t seem real, for a place and its people to just stop _being_ , not when she had walked its streets and seen the beauty of its architecture with her own eyes. It couldn’t be real, but it was exactly what _Ruin_ was capable of.

She looked at the others but Vace stood stone-faced, arms crossed, the only outward sign of a reaction being the flexing of her jaw.

Finn seemed frozen, as if afraid that movement would bring attention to him, the ex-Stormtrooper, someone to blame for something that wasn’t in any way his fault. He immediately looked away when their eyes met.

Poe put his hands on his hips, taking in a shaky breath before he asked quietly, “that’s… that’s why everyone’s in a state, _right_?”

The idea that there was something else hadn’t occurred to Rey and it hit her like a drunk Rodian. She swallowed thickly and stared at Leia, hoping the next words out of her mouth were confirmation, but the bleak look she gave them shattered any such hope.

Leia brought up a projection of a planet blockaded by First Order ships and Poe’s shoulders dropped. “No,” he breathed.

“Yes, the First Order surrounded Hosnian at the same time Ruin openly attacked Naboo. The defence fleet stood no chance, Republic forces are spread too thinly dealing with the _pirates._ ”

“So, what, they capture the Senate and strong-arm us into submission?”

“No.”

Another command brought up a recording, a First Order broadcast featuring a tall, pale human man with immaculately combed hair and a dark military coat. Finn frowned deeply, “that’s the Supreme Commander, Armitage Hux.”

Leia nodded, “yes, he made their intentions quite clear.”

She played the recording, and Hux’s screed against the Republic silenced what little chatter remained in the Hub. The venom of his voice and the fervour with which he delivered it nearly made Rey back away, unnerved by the sheer, exuberant bloodlust of it.

_“Bear witness to the Savage Dawn!”_

The recording ended and Leia brought up other pieces of footage, from the Senate building, from a military installation of some kind, spaceports, hospitals, the very streets of Hosnian—all falling into absolute chaos. It began as a sickly, green vapour flooding the buildings, flooring most people almost immediately. The sick remained unresponsive for a while until they began bleeding from the eyes, nose and mouth, and became aggressive. The infected struggled at first, some tried to fight themselves, tried to hold back a burgeoning, predatory fury, but it won out in the end.

Civilians, military, politicians, it didn’t matter who they were before. The sick rapidly became monsters, running through the city and attacking anyone who wasn’t already infected. The whites of the eyes darkened with blood, the iris became yellow and glowed, and the skin grew pale and corpse like. Fingers began to end in claws and the body deformed, changing from all manner of species to the same, pale, hairless creature with claws, fangs, and prominent olfactory vents taking up the top half of a broad head. Hunched and long-limbed, the end result was a ravenous, unthinking beast able to swarm and overpower almost anything in its way.

Everyone was too stunned to react, staring at the ghastly footage in absolute disbelief.

“Rakghouls,” Vace muttered, breaking the trance.

All eyes turned to her and Leia paused the footage, regarding her with wary curiosity. “You know what this is?” she asked evenly.

“I believe so, though I wish I didn’t. These _things_ look identical to archival images and reports I’ve been fortunate enough to see myself. Sulia was a historian, and I assisted her work. Almost everything we learned, collated, and recorded had to do with the Force, people strong in it, and cultures surrounding it. The Rakghoul Plague is one of the many awful things created through malicious manipulation of the Force.”

Poe’s voice was low and hard as he asked, “was it created by the Sith?”

Vace grimaced, slowly nodding. “Yes, thousands of years ago by a Sith Lord called Karness Muur. From what we could gather he forged an artefact with the power to create and control rakghouls. The wording was difficult to translate, but we believe it was something wearable, a ring, a bracelet, something that could go unnoticed, unlike a weapon.”

Swallowing, Rey finally gathered enough thoughts to speak. “It looked like some kind of bioweapon did that, not a piece of jewellery,” she said quietly, unable to take her eyes off the Hosnian imagery.

Vace nodded again, her jaw set tight and brow deeply furrowed. “Unfortunately, the rakghouls can spread their condition to others through bites and scratches. With Muur’s artefact they _could_ be turned into an army of perfect obedience, but without it they are contagious beasts who obey only their hunger. Outbreaks continued to occur long after it was lost because someone somewhere had their hands on viral material or a surviving population of rakghouls spilled over. This seems quite demonstrably the former.”

Leia eyed the footage. “Do you know how those outbreaks were handled?”

“As far as we could understand, there _was_ a vaccine in production at one point, but no cure was ever formulated to save the ones already transformed, that we could find. My _guess_ is that the transformation is simply too radical to reverse. But thanks to that vaccine and aggressive efforts to wipe out each infestation, the galaxy eventually came to a point where it could _forget_ these horrors ever existed.”

“They must be using a new vaccine, the First Order is zealous but they aren’t fools, they wouldn’t release this without a way to protect themselves. If you were to look for a source of these rakghouls, where would you start?”

Vace hesitated, taking a moment to think, eyes fixed on the faces of the infected as if she could burn a hole through them.

Those poor people were a viscerally horrible sight, and Rey swallowed against the sting of bile at the back of her throat, wrapping her arms around herself. She couldn’t decide what was worse, the bombs or the plague, both nightmarish, immoral acts of violence that would cascade out for generations to come.

Finally, Vace looked at Leia with certainty. “Taris, its history with rakghouls is longer than any other place I can think of and once you hit the catacombs there are enough places to hide that if there _is_ a surviving population you would find it there.”

Poe started as if just remembering something. “Hang on, what about the data-chip?”

Leia shook her head. “We decrypted it an hour before you arrived. It contained troop movements, the names and faces of at least a hundred saboteurs and infiltrators, and battle plans for the Core and Inner Rim, not to mention evidence the First Order has been funnelling credits and resources to fund the boom in piracy throughout the Core.”

His shoulders dropped with his voice. “Nothing to do with this?”

Her mouth twisted in a grimace. “Unfortunately, no, but we’ve sent the information along as securely as possible. It will give the Republic a fighting chance and time to prepare. We haven’t lost this yet.”

Leia looked at each of them in turn, her shoulders back, chin slightly raised, appearing every bit the steadfast General, and the immovability of her presence fostered a measure of hope in Rey, despite the atrocity before them. “If we don’t act to acquire that vaccine,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back, “other worlds _will_ suffer the fate of Hosnian. I need you, all of you.”

Vace’s eyes flicked to the command table, brow furrowing in thought. “I believe from here it would be at least a week’s travel to reach Taris. There is no knowing how long it will take to search for answers.” She met Leia’s gaze, no complaint to her voice only the surety of outlining what was ahead of them. “We may not find anything.”

“I called a council within hours of the attack, the Coalition has a dozen teams searching for leads on this plague but _you_ actually know something concrete about it, and where it might have originated. We didn’t even know what to call it before you returned. If you find nothing on Taris, report it to me, and unless I have a lead for you head directly to the next likely location you can think of.”

“Very well.”

Leia’s gaze passed over them again, her eyes hardening with some difficult to read emotion. “Get your ship resupplied. I’d like to speak with Vace alone.”

Rey tensed, looking at her mama, but Vace motioned with her head to ‘go on,’ so she left with the others to do as Leia asked.

* * *

Changing feeds revealed nothing new about the unfolding crisis on Hosnian, just another insight into the carnage and terror its people were drowning in. Vace scowled at the wretchedness of it, underhanded, cruel, needlessly so—there was no honour in an attack like this.

There was no honour in the attack on Naboo.

“Exactly how familiar are you with Sith history?”

There it was.

Vace straightened from the table to face Leia, projecting neutrality despite the Jedi Master’s probing stare. Truth be told, she expected Leia to interrogate her the moment they met, but things were dire, the Coalition needed all the help it could get, and Force adepts were almost non-existent in their ranks, if not for Leia.

“Very,” she said, “it was a point of significant interest.”

“I see. Most would try to avoid it unless they’re looking for power at _any_ cost, but you don’t seem the type and neither does Rey.”

“You want to know where we stand in your dichotomy.”

Leia smiled dryly at that. “No. I never considered myself an orthodox Jedi, my brother wasn’t either. You fight for a free galaxy, that’s all I can ask.”

Vace narrowed her eyes. “Then what is it?”

A subtle tension entered Leia’s posture and she looked away, fixing her gaze on the ghoulish footage instead. “This mission will almost certainly bring you into contact with Ruin again. If Taris is where this all began, they will anticipate our manoeuvring to secure a vaccine, and he is the Emperor’s best _attack dog_ —he will be sent to keep you from succeeding. That you survived a duel with him tells me you’re a skilled warrior, that Rey was capable of aiding you speaks the same, and Finn will likely follow suit under your training. _Together_ , you may stand the best chance of stopping him.”

There was a telling reluctance to those words, a lack of _finality_ that implied a great many things. It caused a cold tangle of dread to blossom in Vace’s gut, a hundred horrible possibilities running through her mind. “You don’t _want_ me to kill him,” she murmured, and asked gently, “who is he?”

Leia lowered her eyes a moment and crossed her arms with a quiet sigh. “My son,” she said, “Ben Organa.”

The answer almost buckled her knees and Vace closed her eyes as a swell of horror and sympathy threatened to force tears from them. She knew well the trauma Leia suffered, she feared it herself, and any _good_ parent did even if she was far from being one. The death of a child was terrible enough, but to watch them become a monster in need of slaying was a unique sort of pain.

There _was_ utility to be found within bogan, but there was _always_ danger, and she made sure Rey knew that, just as she was taught by Sulia. To go too deep meant to lose oneself, no matter how powerful you thought you were. Those depths were never meant for mortal creatures, hollowing out everything you used to be and replacing it with something wholly removed from morality. It could strip you of your identity, your motivations, your connections to others, all the things that made you who you were.

But it wasn’t the Jedis’ feared _Dark Side_ she felt when she duelled Ruin. Elements of bogan were there, and he roiled with an explosive, desperate sort of rage, like an animal left too long in the trap, their limb inflamed and festering.

No, she felt _it._

Opening her eyes and blinking quickly, Vace cleared the thorns from her throat to say a soft, “I am so sorry.”

Leia looked at her with a sad smile. “Don’t be, you may be in a position to end this.”

“Do you want us to bring him to you if we can?”

“No. I won’t ask you to put yourselves at risk like that. But I do ask that you learn all you can about these new Sith. I’ve studied what I can of their history and the First Order’s Sith are something else.”

A distant, unsettled look entered Leia’s eyes and her voice lowered. “Surely you’ve felt it, that distant, tenebrous _thing_ at the edge of perception.”

An involuntary shudder passed over her and Vace cringed. “I have. It reminds me of the first and only encounter my family had with Snoke. They’ve found something wretched out there.”

Leia grimaced, her eyes passing over Vace’s cybernetics. “I first felt it the night Ben murdered my brother and the rest of the school,” she said, “there was so much good Luke had yet to do, and I was too busy trying to wrangle some sense into the New Republic. I didn’t realise what was coming until it was too late.”

“It is not your fault.”

A dry, painful half-smile turned Leia’s mouth. “And would you be so kind to yourself, were you in my position?”

Vace shook her head. “No, we are often crueller to ourselves than we would ever be to others,” she said firmly, “but _I_ can be kind to _you_.”

Leia took a slow, shaky breath and nodded. “I… appreciate that.”

Frowning, Leia continued in a dark, thoughtful voice, “I believe he made contact with whatever that _thing_ is at Snoke’s behest. He was never a troubled or aggressive child, just curious, _always_ curious, always trying to prove himself, prove that he could be just as great as the rest of his family.”

“You were his heroes.”

“Yes. We’d defeated a great evil and brought peace back to the galaxy. Would that it could have been so simple _after_ the war was won, but rebuilding took everything his father and I could give. It was a relief when Luke offered to take him.”

“Do you think he felt abandoned?”

“Maybe, I can’t say for certain, all I know is that something made him vulnerable and now I can always feel it. Just out of sight, but always there.”

Vace shifted uncomfortably, a chill clawing its way up her back. She folded her ears. “Our relative proximity to it is likely what allows us to passively perceive it this way,” she said. “But I will see if I can uncover anything more about it.” She hesitated before adding gently, “and I will do what needs to be done.”

Leia nodded gratefully and Vace turned to leave, only to pause and look back. “Before we leave, are there any areas on D’Qar that are particularly strong in Force?”

* * *

By the time the ship’s fuel and supplies were topped up Finn felt slightly less horrified by what he’d seen, but most of his brain was still busy recoiling like a startled snake while he stared at the Truth Seeker’s silvery hull, as if its elegant lines held an answer that would make him feel any less awful.

Poe reminded him it wasn’t his fault, and he could _almost_ believe Poe meant it, if not for the overbearing shock of it all making it hard to believe anything positive at the moment.

It was in this grim stupor that Vace approached him with a sense of purpose about her.

“Get your lightsaber components,” she said gruffly.

It almost didn’t register but she didn’t repeat herself, staring at him until he blinked and the words caught up to him. He hurried off, retrieving them from a drawer under his bunk.

She took him by speeder to a tranquil locale, a clearing of old carved rock and moss, ringed by ancient trees and sitting at the edge of a lake. The peaceful nature of it made his skin itch, feeling as if he was some kind of intruder, and he watched as Vace sat down at the centre. She motioned for him to join her.

He did so, numbly, and froze when she fixed him with a look that was far gentler than he felt he deserved. “We meditate first to even you out, or your crystals will be unbalanced.”

“What does that mean?” he asked quietly.

“When you construct your lightsaber, you impart all of yourself to it. A Jedi would focus only the positive, and a _Sith_ would focus only the negative—we do both to create something balanced and whole. You cannot have one without the other, or it becomes meaningless. If you have never been sad, you take your happiness for granted. If you have never learned to control your anger, you run the risk of _it_ controlling _you_. Do you follow?”

“I think so. You’re saying my lightsabre would tip in one direction over the other if I made it now.”

She nodded. “Yes, but I can help you with that,” she said, and offered her hands, “If you allow it.”

There was little else he could do. They needed to head to Taris, immediately, but he understood enough that to make his lightsaber here was more beneficial than doing it on the ship when he felt better.

 _If_ he could feel better.

Finn placed his hands in hers, one cool and hard, the palm cushioned with synthetic pads for better grip, the other warm and soft with fur, marked with tiny, cutting scars, and both tipped by claws that could easily take out someone’s eye.

She began, “close your eyes and focus on your breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, slow and deep.”

He did as instructed and she continued in a gentle but firm tone of voice. “When you feel the tension begin to lift, I want you to listen to this space. Listen to the creatures that call it home, to the wind, to the lake, and feel how the Force flows through it.”

It took a while for that to happen, part of him still wanted to scream in thoughtless, abject shock, and from the sharp, prickling maze of that shock his thoughts drifted to Phasma. Because for her, open battle had a purity to it, an honest, _bloody_ purity between those souls sent to die for their people, throwing their hearts and bodies into a fire that no one else could face. There was a pride to be taken, pride in defending your people, in bleeding for your home, for putting your body between them and the enemy and saying ‘no further.’

But this wasn’t defence.

It was slaughter.

It was slaughter on Jakku and it was slaughter now.

To know she was party to it brought a fresh swell of grief to his throat, for her, and for himself. He didn’t pull the trigger, but he did nothing for the people of Taunul, desperate and terrified, and unarmed. They were not a threat and he just stood there and _watched_ them die.

Vace instructed, “do not deny your feelings, but do not let them overwhelm you, they are _yours_ to control, whether you channel them or let them pass, but do not let them _control_ you.” She added softly, “keep breathing.”

He did. He drew in one breath after another, taking his time to parse the horror and shame and anger and sorrow until he could finally begin to reach out to the space around them, and feel that it was peaceful. In this corner of the galaxy, far away from Hosnian, from Jakku, from all the suffering of the Inner Rim, and the penumbral horror lurking within his home, there was still tranquillity to be found. The coming war would reach far, but it could not reach _everywhere_ , and from these untouched places there could grow the seeds of hope.

Of revolution.

Vace did not rush him, allowing him to settle in the placid ebb and flow of the living Force on D’Qar, until the lapping water slowly brought him back to the lake in his mind. The waters lay dark and opaque, but still.

He muttered, “Okay. I can do this.” He opened his eyes to find that the sun was further along than it was before, two hours had passed, maybe more. Belatedly, he realised he wasn’t sure of D’Qar’s orbit.

Noting his puzzled expression, Vace said, “an hour and a half.” She withdrew her hands and shifted back, creating enough space between them to set down all the mechanical parts necessary for a lightsabre. They were aligned to approximate their final positioning, with gaps for the crystals.

Finn took them out of his jacket and Vace wordlessly pointed out where the place them, explaining as they went.

Hrakertian glass, primary, to birth the blade, giving it shape, colour, and a fundamental nature.

Lorrdian gemstone, secondary, to augment the blade, imparting versatility to its wielder.

A third set of crystals could be used, and three crystals to a hilt were considered an ideal number, but it was easier to begin with fewer, and the more familiar with his weapon he grew the more Finn could grapple with how best to tailor it to his needs.

He asked, “what do you have? I felt them…before.”

“Primary phond, secondary sapith, and tertiary sigil. Each contributes to the raw power of the blade, but sapith specifically tempers the ferocity created by phond, allowing greater control with every swing.”

“And sigil?”

“Added potency—even if I only strike my opponent’s blade and not them, they will _feel_ it. The weapon worked in your hands but not to its full potential, your crystals are attuned to _you_ , and they respond most powerfully to _you_. Are you ready?”

Finn nodded and Vace began to guide him through the process of closing his eyes and bringing all his focus to bear on the crystals between them. He breathed deeply, and did his best to remain mindful so he could impart a balanced self, his joy _and_ his anger, his fear _and_ his hope, an honest extension of himself that wasn’t tipped too far in one direction at the expense of the other.

At her prompting, he slowly drew the living Force through the connection and into his crystals. He distantly heard Vace speaking, repeating the same lines over and over again as the process stretched on;

_“From blood there is honour, from honour there is wisdom, from wisdom there unity, from unity there is strength, in our strength there is a future, balanced and unbroken.”_

A pure clarity of focus hit him like a drink of cold water in the desert, guiding him to sightlessly lift the disparate pieces of his lightsaber and fit them together, one after another, until they were no longer separate components but a coherent whole.

Finn instinctively reached out and grasped his completed hilt. He opened his eyes, stared at the weapon he just built using the Force, a thing he had for so long been terrified to use openly, and broke into a grin despite himself.

Vace smiled, restrained. “Well done,” she said, rising.

He got to his feet as well and she gestured for him to ‘go ahead,’ so he did, igniting his lightsaber at both ends. The blade burst forth with a hiss that reminded him of hot metal being quenched, a brilliant, cyan scythe of light that gave him an immediate sense of calm and fortitude. It gave off a subdued hum and he extinguished one side, holding up a single blade in both hands. The grip was more comfortable, reminding him of training with two-handed weapons when he was younger.

Now that he wasn’t under duress, he noticed lightsabers weren’t as light as he expected. Not as heavy as a physical weapon, but far from _light_. It was a comfortable weight, and he tested it with a few experimental swings, soothed by the sound of the blade humming through the air.

Aware that Vace was watching him he cleared his throat and lowered the weapon. “What now?”

“Traditionally, we spar, if you would like to.”

“I would.”

She still wore a restrained smile. Drawing her weapon, Vace took a defensive stance, giving the opening strike to him.

Finn took it, testing the swing, the feedback when their blades met, how much strength he could put behind it before it was wasted effort, and Vace watched him all the way, commenting here and there to adjust his footwork, his posture, helping him align to his growing familiarity with soresu. She only pressed back enough to force an adjustment if need be, or demonstrate a gap in his defences.

It was a comfortable back and forth, the full attention of a careful teacher sending him back to his early days of training, when Phasma first took him under her wing.

Finn sighed and stepped back, rolling his shoulders. “Let’s get back to the ship,” he said, “we can train more on the way, yeah?”

Vace eyed him a moment before putting her lightsaber away. She unfolded a leather casing from a deep pocket in her trousers and tossed it to him. “Strap it to the back of your belt, practice pulling your weapon from it.”

He looked down at the case and his new lightsaber. “Vace?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. I don’t think I would’ve gotten anywhere with any of this without you. I would’ve died back there—you didn’t have to give me your weapon.”

Her eyes hardened. “Yes, I did. You deserve to live, Finn. You are _not_ your people’s atrocities.”

Her tone brooked no argument, so Finn took a breath, held it, and nodded.

* * *

“I know I don’t have to tell you to use the utmost caution on this mission,” said Leia, standing stern and resolute at the foot of the Truth Seeker’s boarding ramp. “But I will anyway. Republic leadership is in chaos, their fleet is in disarray, and the First Order will feel emboldened to launch further attacks. Do not underestimate them, or their reach.”

“You can count on us, General,” Poe said with a firm salute. He eyed Amilyn at her side and smiled expectantly. “You ready?”

“Oh,” she started, wringing her hands. “I’m just here to wish you luck, really. I doubt I’d be much help.”

Leia sent her a sidelong glance.

Poe crossed his arms. “I know it doesn’t feel like it but you were great back there, and we could use another person with technical knowhow. Besides, you forgot to take your bag off the ship. It’d be really awkward for us to leave without you too.”

She blinked, opening her mouth as if to protest, but sighed and looked at Leia.

Leia wordlessly motioned her head towards the ship.

A soft, sad look passed over Amilyn’s face and embraced the General tightly, whispering a goodbye. Leia stroked her back, eyes closed for the long moment they held each other until Amilyn pulled away.

Leia gently said, “May the Force be with you.”

Amilyn propped her brow against Leia’s. “And also with you.”


End file.
